ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the political-intellectual responses of East Coast US elites to the rise of anti-Americanism, specifi cally the historical and contemporary public diplomacy initiatives of major philanthropic foundations. Periods of antiAmericanism – such as during the Cold War and after 11 September 2001 and the Iraq War – led the major American philanthropies (in this case, the Ford Foundation and the German Marshall Fund of the United States) to launch signifi cant private initiatives that dovetailed in a semi-offi cial division of labour with offi cial state agencies’ efforts to combat ‘anti-Americanism’ and to promote ‘Americanism’. Some privately organized and funded public diplomacy initiatives were considered so successful by foundation and state offi cials that they were continued over several decades.
