Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- The Authors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- “The American Century”
- 1 Making the World Safe for Democracy in the American Century
- 2 “Empire by Invitation” in the American Century
- 3 America and the Twentieth Century: Continuity and Change
- 4 The Idea of the National Interest
- 5 The Tension between Democracy and Capitalism during the American Century
- 6 The American Century: From Sarajevo to Sarajevo
- 7 East Asia in Henry Luce's “American Century”
- 8 The American Century and the Third World
- 9 Race from Power: U.S. Foreign Policy and the General Crisis of “White Supremacy”
- 10 Immigrants and Frontiersmen: Two Traditions in American Foreign Policy
- 11 Partisan Politics and Foreign Policy in the American Century
- 12 Philanthropy and Diplomacy in the American Century
- 13 A Century of NGOs
- 14 Consuming Women: Images of Americanization in the “American Century”
- 15 The Empire of the Fun, or Talkin' Soviet Union Blues: The Sound of Freedom and U.S. Cultural Hegemony in Europe
- 16 American Empire and Cultural Imperialism: A View from the Receiving End
- Index
12 - Philanthropy and Diplomacy in the American Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- The Authors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- “The American Century”
- 1 Making the World Safe for Democracy in the American Century
- 2 “Empire by Invitation” in the American Century
- 3 America and the Twentieth Century: Continuity and Change
- 4 The Idea of the National Interest
- 5 The Tension between Democracy and Capitalism during the American Century
- 6 The American Century: From Sarajevo to Sarajevo
- 7 East Asia in Henry Luce's “American Century”
- 8 The American Century and the Third World
- 9 Race from Power: U.S. Foreign Policy and the General Crisis of “White Supremacy”
- 10 Immigrants and Frontiersmen: Two Traditions in American Foreign Policy
- 11 Partisan Politics and Foreign Policy in the American Century
- 12 Philanthropy and Diplomacy in the American Century
- 13 A Century of NGOs
- 14 Consuming Women: Images of Americanization in the “American Century”
- 15 The Empire of the Fun, or Talkin' Soviet Union Blues: The Sound of Freedom and U.S. Cultural Hegemony in Europe
- 16 American Empire and Cultural Imperialism: A View from the Receiving End
- Index
Summary
This essay is concerned with the role of the “big” foundations in the United States during the “American Century” and with the ways in which their activities related to the projection of the country's political, economic, and cultural power around the globe. In order to provide some fresh empirical backup for the more general arguments about the subject, central parts of what follows focus on the work of the Ford Foundation, which from 1948 onward grew to become the largest philanthropic organization in the world, spending millions of dollars every year on international projects.
Because the major expansion of American foundation activity did not occur until after the end of World War II, however, the topic also raises the question as to when the “American Century” in fact began if seen through the lens of the historian of corporate capitalism and of culture. Whatever the time frame of the political historian, certainly from the perspective of cultural and business history a very plausible case can be made that, broadly speaking, the year 1900 must be the starting point. It was at the turn of the century that Europe – then still the power center of the world – began to perceive the United States as the new world power of the future not merely in terms of political and military potential but also – and indeed most particularly so – in terms of industrial-technological and cultural power and influence.
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- Information
- The Ambiguous LegacyU.S. Foreign Relations in the 'American Century', pp. 378 - 415Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999
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