Mine Rescue, by Fletcher Martin, 1939. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC.

Philanthropy

Volume VIII, Number 3 | summer 2015

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Preamble

Pennies from Heaven

By Lewis H. Lapham

The word philanthropy first appears in Western thought in the fifth century BC to denote an act of rebellion and name the crime of treason.

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Philanthropy in the End Times

By Curtis White

The state of giving at the impossible intersection of capitalism, morality, and the natural world.

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Map

Money Trails

Where the UN, the World Bank, and eleven nations send foreign aid.

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Miscellany

After serving a three-month prison sentence in 1927 for oltraggio, the crime of uttering insults against public figures, Italian workman Aristido Beccatti owed a 300-lire fine. Upon being told of the situation, Benito Mussolini, the insulted public figure, sent Beccatti a 500-lire check.

1905 | New York City

It Takes a Village

What is a woman of leisure to do with herself?More

1757 | Paris

Intentional Fallacy

“Generally it is found to be easier to found new establishments than to reform the old.”More

c. 1250 | France

Overhead Costs

“The clergy is assured salvation and the knights will go to damnation.”More

Charts & Graphs

Match the Mission

A game of goodwill.

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Portrait bust of Greek dramatist Aeschylus.

Engraving of William Shakespeare from the first folio edition.

Nigerian author Chinua Achebe.

American poet, journalist, and essayist Walt Whitman.

Engraving of Roman author and administrator Pliny the Younger.

Jewish philosopher, jurist, and physician Moses Maimonides.

Black and white photograph of American writer and exponent of Transcendentalism Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Without virtue, both riches and honor, to me, seem like the passing cloud.

—Confucius, c. 350 BC

Edward III & Carol Liu

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