BOOK REVIEW: Sébastien Farré, Colis de guerre. Secours alimentaire et organisations humanitaires (1914-1947), Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2014, 288 pages, ISBN: 978-2-7535-3419-3

By suggesting a study on the mutual aid actions by means of the war parcel – one of the most symbolic issues of the support actions throughout this period – Sébastien Farré, a scientist in charge of the History House of Geneva University (Maison de l’histoire de l’Université de Genève) , has a new way of seeing the history of humanitarian organisations. By opening the parcel, by wondering about its route from manufacture to distribution to the beneficiaries, he is rebuilding a humanitarian story crossing the social and cultural history of philanthropic acts. Placing himself into the real world, he departs from the literature written by the humanitarian actors; he is placing again the history of the humanitarian institutions in the field of social policies; he is drawing up a study on the humanitarian economy. In this respect the sources are numerous, issued by ICRC, IUWC, CARE, UNRRA, etc. It’s about looking into the archives by taking advantage of this sojourn as a researcher invited at Columbia University or at Oxford University. The photographical notebook consisting of 32 pages includes 59 quality photos which are not just pictures but constitute a real iconographic corpus. However, it’s a pity that certain photos are not dated and the chronology is manhandled throughout the story.