# The Charity of War: Famine, Humanitarian Aid, and World War I in the Middle East

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/books/the-charity-of-war-famine-humanitarian-aid-and-world-war-i-in-the-middle-east/
- Published: 2017-11-14T15:38:00+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**With the exception of a few targeted aerial bombardments of the city’s port, Beirut
and Mount Lebanon did not see direct combat in the First World War. Yet civilian
casualties in this part of the Ottoman Empire reached shocking heights, possibly
as many as half a million people. **

No war, in its usual understanding, took place there, but Lebanon was incontestably
war-stricken. As a food crisis escalated into famine, it was the bloodless incursion
of starvation and the silent assault of fatal disease that defined everyday life.

_The Charity of War_ tells how the Ottoman home front grappled with total war and
how it sought to mitigate starvation and sickness through relief activities.

Melanie S. Tanielian examines the wartime famine’s reverberations throughout the
community: in Beirut’s municipal institutions, in its philanthropic and religious
organisations, in international agencies, and in the homes of the city’s residents.

Her local history reveals a dynamic politics of provisioning that was central to
civilian experiences in the war, as well as to the Middle Eastern political landscape
that emerged post-war. By tracing these responses to the conflict, she demonstrates
World War I’s immediacy far from the European trenches, in a place where war was
a socio-economic and political process rather than a military event.

## About Melanie S. Tanielian

**Melanie S. Tanielian** is an associate professor in the History Department at 
the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She received her Ph.D. in history from the
University of California, Berkeley.

## Reviews

“Melanie Tanielian provides us with an honest history of the miseries in Lebanon
during the Great War, as well as the humanitarian efforts to relieve them. _The 
Charity of War_ offers a unique story, neglected until now in other histories of
the region. A highly original and important contribution.”
**M. Talha Çiçek**, Istanbul
Medeniyet University

“Melanie S. Tanielian’s _The Charity of War_ is an important work that contributes
to our broader understanding of the origins of modern humanitarianism in the Middle
East and beyond. Built on both a solid archival foundation and broad reading in 
famine and food insecurity, the book is a critical text in the emerging literature
on the global history of humanitarian organisations, relief work, and development.”**
Keith David Watenpaugh**, University of California, Davis. Author of _Bread from
Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism_.[](https://fundraising.co.uk/books/the-charity-of-war-famine-humanitarian-aid-and-world-war-i-in-the-middle-east/void(0))