Modern philanthropy has long had an ambivalent relationship with its own history. On the one hand, every decade or so has brought tidings of a New Philanthropy, or sometimes even of a New, New Philanthropy, a designation that promotes a virtuous discontinuity with the giving that had marked the benighted old days. Centuries ago, such … Continue reading
Author Archives: HistPhil
The Clinton Foundation in Historical Perspective
My friend and long-time collaborator in studying the history of the philanthropic foundation, Barry Karl, cautioned me that “historians cannot predict the future, they are not even very good at predicting the past.” Wise words, and I have tried to keep them in mind for the forty years in which I have been thinking about … Continue reading