Philanthropology, the Science of Philanthropy

Book excerpt: This book sheds a positive light on the prevalence of love for humankind in the form of philanthropy. All around our globe, people rich and poor, urban and rural, religious and non-religious, in “advanced” and “developing” societies alike, perform acts of philanthropy, organizationally embedded and guided by philanthropic values and norms. This book, therefore, attempts to reach a truly international audience, because philanthropy is not an exclusively Western phenomenon. Besides the growing public interest across the world, more and more academic disciplines are taking an interest in philanthropy, each scrutinizing philanthropy from their own disciplinary perspective and with a particular focus. As a result, however, the overall picture has rather faded into the background. In line with cultural anthropologists, the book presents philanthropy as a universal societal system, differently arranged in each society, that deserves a distinctive academic discipline: the science of philanthropology.