Philanthropy, Patronage, and Civil Society: Experiences from Germany, Great Britain, and North America

In Philanthropy, Patronage, and Civil Society, Thomas Adam has assembled
a comparative set of case studies that challenge long-held and little-studied
assumptions about the modern development of philanthropy. Histories of philanthropy
have often neglected European patterns of giving and the importance of financial
patronage to the emergence of modern industrialized societies. It has long been
assumed, for example, that Germany never developed civic traditions of philanthropy
as in the United States. In truth, however, 19th-century German museums, art
galleries, and social housing projects were not only privately founded and
supported, they were also blueprints for the creation of similar public institutions
in North America. The comparative method of the essays also reveals the extent to
which the wealthy classes on both sides of the Atlantic defined themselves through
their philanthropic activities.

Contributors are Thomas Adam,
Maria Benjamin Baader, Karsten Borgmann, Tobias Brinkmann, Brett Fairbairn, Eckhardt
Fuchs, David C. Hammack, Dieter Hoffmann, Simone Lässig, Margaret Eleanor
Menninger, and Susannah Morris.