ABSTRACT
Western Europe has a long history of philanthropy and charity, stretching from the early Christian period, through the Middle Ages, all the way to the 19th and the early 20th centuries, the era of industrialization, rising capitalism and poverty. Take, for example, the Charity Organization Society in the UK. In his book Philanthropy, Patronage and Civil Society Thomas Adam stresses the European roots of modern philanthropy.1 He concedes that ‘Philanthropy has thus been widely seen as an American invention and as a distinct American approach to modern life’,2 but shows that ‘philanthropy is a European, not an American invention’.3
