Editors’ Note: Heather D. Curtis discusses her new book, Holy Humanitarians: American Evangelicals and Global Aid. On September 2, 2015, the body of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi washed up ashore near the Turkish resort of Bodrum. Originally from Damascus, the boy and his family were refugees from the Syrian civil war seeking to reach the Greek … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: This HistPhil forum on philanthropy in Sweden opens with an essay by HistPhil co-editor Maribel Morey. It will be followed by contributions from Lars Trägårdh, Johan Vamstad, Noomi Weinryb, Johanna Palmberg, Pontus Braunerhjelm, and Jaakko Turunen. Though planned for some months, we are publishing this forum right as a national conversation in the United … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Benjamin Soskis reviews Joel Fleishman’s Putting Wealth to Work: Philanthropy for Today or Investing for Tomorrow? HistPhil recently published an excerpt from the book. In his new book, Putting Wealth to Work, Joel Fleishman, a professor of law and public policy at Duke and the director of its Center for Strategic Philanthropy and Civil … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: The following is a modified excerpt from Joel Fleishman’s recently published book, Putting Wealth to Work: Philanthropy for Today or Investing for Tomorrow? Henry Ford II resigned as a trustee of the Ford Foundation in 1976, 40 years after he assumed his first role at the organization. His decision to leave, and the way … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: The following post is adapted from a talk that Bruce Robbins gave at the University of Copenhagen in June 2017. It is based on his recently published book, The Beneficiary. In the May 17, 2016 London Review of Books, journalist Ben Ehrenreich interviewed a 31-year-old Syrian man he encountered in the so-called “Jungle” … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: We are in the midst of a “Rosenwald Resurgence”–a wave of attention and accolade directed toward Julius Rosenwald, the Sears, Roebuck magnate and early 20th century philanthropist. He’s become a model for a new generation of actively engaged living donors. (For a critical analysis of his resurgence, see HistPhil co-editor Maribel Morey‘s post arguing … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Bill Bush discusses the history and impressive impact of the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health. The concept of “wellness” has become a widely accepted, if loosely defined, feature of the everyday cultural landscape of American society. Central to that wellness ideal is mental health, itself a concept readily found in news coverage of … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Nina Berman wraps up HistPhil‘s book forum on German philanthropic history. The chapter I wrote for German Philanthropy in Transatlantic Perspective is part of a larger ethnographic project that I conducted over much of the past decade in an Indian Ocean community in Kenya. That study explores material changes and social relations in Diani, an … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Volker Berghahn continues HistPhil‘s book forum on German philanthropic history. Berghahn contributed to the edited volume, German Philanthropy in Transatlantic Perspective, which Gregory Witkowski introduced in yesterday’s post. In his recent book, Philanthropy, Civil Society and the State in German History, Thomas Adam endeavors to correct several misperceptions that he found in the literature … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: HistPhil continues its book forum on German philanthropic history with a post from Gregory R. Witkowski, the co-editor of the recently published volume, German Philanthropy in Transatlantic Perspective. Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America casts a long shadow on discussions of the role of charitable giving, associations, and civil society in a democracy. … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Thomas Adam, author of Philanthropy, Civil Society, and the State in German History, 1815-1989 (reviewed yesterday by Stefan Toepler), continues HistPhil‘s week-long book forum on German philanthropy history. The last two decades have seen the rise of social enterprises and social entrepreneurship in which profit-seeking ventures are combined with philanthropic forms. This “new … Continue reading
Editors Note: The last year witnessed the publication two important books on the history of modern German philanthropy, Thomas Adam’s Philanthropy, Civil Society, and the State in German History, 1815-1989 and German Philanthropy in Transatlantic Perspective, edited by Gregory Witkowski and Arnd Bauerkämper. The coincidence of these two works signals a contemporary flowering of scholarship on the … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Continuing the forum on philanthropy and political science, Leah Stokes details how the funding strategies of the Energy Foundation led to policy innovation. Foundations are often interested in catalyzing policy change. In the United States, however, this is a difficult task to accomplish. The political system is fragmented, with many policy venues. Individual politicians … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Benjamin Soskis wraps up HistPhil’s book forum on David Callahan’s The Givers. Although it has gotten much more attention for its commentary on the contemporary philanthropic scene, David Callahan’s The Givers also makes some important arguments about philanthropic history (for more on my thoughts on the book, see my review in the American … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: Kristin Goss continues HistPhil’s book forum on David Callahan’s The Givers. Michael Bloomberg is a media titan, former big city mayor, and billionaire philanthropist who is deeply worried about global climate change, as well as about the well-funded denialists and business interests hindering action to halt it. In recent years, Bloomberg has pledged … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: HistPhil co-editor Stanley N. Katz continues HistPhil’s book forum on David Callahan’s The Givers. THE GIVERS is one of the most useful and readable books recently published on the topic of philanthropy. It is especially well-informed on both the institutions and individuals who compose the new world of mega-philanthropy, which is the actual subject … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: David Callahan’s The Givers: Wealth, Power, and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age has been one of the more widely anticipated and widely discussed books on philanthropy in recent memory (see, for instance, reviews and coverage here, here, here, and here). At HistPhil, we were keenly interested not only in the content of the book but … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: The following is adapted from the introduction to a paper just published by the Atlantic Philanthropies, written by HistPhil co-editor Benjamin Soskis, on the history of “Giving While Living,” examined through the story of Chuck Feeney and the Atlantic Philanthropies. The paper is itself an excerpt from a larger monograph that analyzes the issue of … Continue reading
Editors’ Note: HistPhil co-editor Benjamin Soskis reviews Karl Zinsmeister’s What Comes Next? Over the last half century, whenever a Republican assumed the presidency after a stretch in electoral exile, you knew it was only a matter of time before Alexis de Tocqueville appeared on the scene. That is, calls to cut the size and scope … Continue reading
[Editors’ Note: The following post, by Sarah Glassford, was first published, earlier this week, on the blog of the Canadian Network on Humanitarian History. It is the first in a series of three posts that will report on a conference held in September 2016 at Fliders University in Adelaide, Australia on the history of the … Continue reading
