Clara Barton: A Centenary Tribute to the World's Greatest Humanitarian

This centenary tribute captures the extraordinary life of Clara Barton, the woman who transformed humanitarian work in America. Born in 1821, Barton refused the narrow life prescribed to women of her era, instead walking onto Civil War battlefields when others fled. She tended wounded soldiers with little more than bandages and stubborn courage, earning the name 'Angel of the Battlefield' from the men she saved. Young chronicles her impossible persistence: the years of struggle to establish the American Red Cross, her expeditions into disaster zones when formal aid organizations didn't exist, and the personal toll of a life spent in other people's emergencies. The book isn't simply hagiography; it grapples with her complexities, her loneliness, and the fierce will that drove her. A century after her death, Barton remains the blueprint for what humanitarian response can look like when one person decides that suffering is unacceptable.