ABSTRACT
This chapter provides some indications regarding the dynamics of the charitable field in the world leader of religious neoliberalization, the United States. It suggests how the making of the neoliberal donor/volunteer constitutes a break from everyday American giving, which still harbors strongly communitarian elements. The chapter analyzes the long revolution through which the liberal understanding of generosity rose to prominence and weathered a few serious storms. It discusses why it did not gain as much ground in two prominent Muslim loci up until the last few decades. The chapter ultimately lays out the changing political economic frameworks that made the Islamization of liberal generosity possible. It studies and problematizes the relative "purity" of American neoliberalism with a strategic purpose. The chapter considers American religious charity as the liberal revolution's ultimate culmination. In the eyes of many charity practitioners and academics, American charitable culture sends strong signals throughout the world, which others may then emulate or not.
