Giving: Western Ideas of Philanthropy

Philanthropic and Nonprofit Studies

by J.B. Schneewind (Editor)

What ways do we have for understanding charity and philanthropy? How do we come to think in these ways? In this volume, historians of antiquity, the middle ages, early modern thought, and the Victorian era discuss the evolution of thinking about and practicing voluntary giving, taking up some inescapable questions about charity.

248 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1996

Reviews

[Rodney Likaku · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here we are presented with a complex and yet thoroughly researched meditation on giving and philanthropy. It is really a comprehensive and well-written acknowledgement to aid starting from the 16th century up to the present day (almost). Dimensions of aid are explored herein in ways that present to us aspects that make us understand poverty, the poor, and even the rich. What makes some individuals or societies rich ("excess is the hallmark of the poor")? What is the philosophy of poverty (from Aquinas--Kant)? When is it immoral to refuse aid or gifts (From different cultural understanding to the work of Freud)? What are the cultural implications of gift-giving? When does the gift not harm the receiver? Why is foreign aid problematic in places where it should, in fact, be most impactful? From Augustine, Plato, St Thomas Aquinas, Jesus, Book T. Washington; to The Stanford Center of Research Institute of Philanthropy and Tuskegee University it seems that the poor of the world in the 17th Century have a lot in common to do with the poor in the global world today. Moreover, statistics is only a bi-product by which to understand the poor because the way they approach the world is different from people in rich societies. Schneewind makes highly quotable paragraphs that make sense to understanding how the world works, why literature is the best measure for poverty since around the 19th century, and why the study of poverty should in essence begin with the mega-rich of the world. I think this should be required reading for think-tanks, NGOs, and Research Institutions that want to understand the relationship between their programming and desolation; and importantly why we need fiction added to this conversation. Suffice to add, Schneewind makes an argument that I thought was new: that poverty is necessary and its eradication is nearly impossible and yet alleviating the world of the conditions experienced by the poor is possible if one turns to a writer such as Dickens.