December 4, 2011
'Nickel and Dime’ Giving Examined in New History
Tom Cogill
“It’s not often in the life of a historian that you find such a big topic that’s looking for its history,” says Olivier Zunz.
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Tom Cogill
“It’s not often in the life of a historian that you find such a big topic that’s looking for its history,” says Olivier Zunz.
Historians have given scant attention to philanthropy. A new book by Olivier Zunz, Philanthropy in America: A History, offers a redress.
In his book, Mr. Zunz, a professor of American history at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, describes the growth of U.S. philanthropy from the 1870s to the present. He looks at not only the giving of the elites—Andrew Carnegie, Bill Gates—but also the “mass philanthropy” of ordinary
