Lawrence J. Friedman is Professor of History and Philanthropic Studies at Indiana University. His publications include Identity's Architect: A Biography of Erik Erikson (1999) and Menninger: The Family and the Clinic (1990). Mark D. McGarvie is the Golieb Fellow in Legal History at the New York University School of Law. He has published in the Journal of College and University Law, Indiana Magazine of History, and Wisconsin Bar Bulletin.

• Introduction: philanthropy in America: historicism and its discontents Lawrence J. Friedman; Part I. Giving and Caring in Early America, 1601–1861: 1. Giving in America: from charity to organised philanthropy Robert Gross; 2. Protestant missionaries: pioneers of early American philanthropy Amanda Porterfield; 3. The origins of Anglo-American sensibility G. J. Barker Benfield; 4. The Dartmouth College case and the legal design of American philanthropy Mark McGarvie; 5. Rethinking assimilation: American Indians and the practice of Christianity, 1800–1861 Stephen Warren; 6. Antebellum reform: salvation, self-control, and social transformation Wendy Gamber; Part II. The Nationalisation and Internationalising of American Philanthropy, 1861–1930: 7. Law, reconstruction, and African-American education in post-emancipation South Foy Finkenbine; 8. Women and political culture Kathleen McCarthy; 9. From gift to foundation: the philanthropic lives of Mrs Russell Sage Ruth Crocker; 10. 'Curing evils at their source': the arrival of 'scientific giving' Judy Sealander; 11. Missions to the world: philanthropy abroad Emily Rosenberg; Part III. Philanthropic Reconstructions, 1930–2001: 12. Failure and resilience: pushing the limits in depression and wartime David Hammack; 13. Faith and good works: catholic giving and taking Mary Oates; 14. In defence of diversity: Jewish thought from assimilation to cultural pluralism Stephen Whitfield; 15. Waging the Cold War in the third world: the foundations and the challenges of development Gary Hess; 16. Philanthropy, the civil rights movement, and the politics of racial reform Claude Clegg; 17. Philanthropy, the welfare state, and the careers of public and private institutions since 1945 Peter Hall; Epilogue: The European Comparison William Cohen.

'As a volume offering a view of the current 'state of the field', this work is arguably the most important historical study of philanthropy to be published in recent years … Charity, Philanthropy, and Civility should certainly inspire future historians to tackle the topic and, perhaps more important, it will provide practitioners and non-historians with a deeper understanding of the roots of American philanthropy.' Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly