Unpublished Writings of Henry Dunant

Extract

Jointly with the Editions de l'Age d'homme, Lausanne, the Henry Dunant Institute has published a remarkable book of which the first part is Henry Dunant's Un Souvenir de Solférino and the second part various texts written by Dunant between 1864 and about 1897 under the general heading L'avenir sanglant. A foreword by the Swiss writer Denis de Rougemont brings out the novelty of the ideas in L'avenir sanglant and their contrast with Un souvenir de Solférino. The aim of the latter was “to reduce the horrors of war” whilst the former, of a more violent style, denounces war. As this preface says, L'avenir sanglant reveals “without the shadow of a doubt, Dunant's real feelings which he could perhaps not admit—even to himself—when he started writing A Memory of Solférino”.