Skip the primary navigation if you do not want to read it as the next section.
Skip the main content if you do not want to read it as the next section.
The Billionaire who Wasn’t: How Chuck Feeney secretly made and gave away a fortune
Conor O’Clery. London: Perseus, September 2007. 338pp. Hardback. ISBN 978-1-58648-391-3 $26.95
This authorized, but unapproved biography, tells the story of how Charles “Chuck” Feeney is giving away the entire multi-billion dollar fortune he made as the founder of Duty Free Shoppers. Unlike donors who turn to philanthropy once their financial independence is secure and they have satisfied their desire for luxuries, the biographer paints a picture of a frugal man who travels economy class and doesn’t own a home or a car.
GIving: How each of us can change the world
Bill Clinton. London: Hutchinson, 2007. 256pp. Hardback. ISBN: 978-0-091-79575-7. £20
The former White House resident has been recently described as “a philanthropist who happened to be President”. Drawing on his post-presidential career of building a foundation and leading the American voluntary response to the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, Clinton’s book is a call to action, encouraging people “to give whatever you can, because everyone can give something”.
Mrs Russell Sage: Women's Activism and Philanthropy in Gilded Age and Progressive Era America
Ruth Crocker. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2006
A meticulous biography which argues that Olivia Sage is significant for the scale of her giving as well as for her personal beliefs. In an era when women’s engagement with public life was minimal, she saw ‘spending as a form of speaking’. This book is a fascinating study of the elusive subject of philanthropic motivation and the use of philanthropy as a form of activism.
• Read the review in the June 2007 Newsletter
The New Philanthropists
Charles Handy. London: William Heinemann, 2006
This book contains profiles of 23 ‘new philanthropists’, around half of them UK-based, with the aim of understanding and celebrating their efforts and encouraging other wealthy people to follow suit. Verging on the hagiographic, this is nonetheless a useful guide to the contours of the new breed of big givers.
• Read the review in the December 2006 Newsletter
Carnegie
Peter Krass. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2003
This comprehensive biography explores the contradictions in the life of the man who rose from bobbin boy to become the richest man in the world and the founder of modern philanthropy. The biographer’s great-grandfather worked in one of Carnegie’s ‘hellish mills’ but gives due weight to explaining both the ‘robber baron’ and his remarkable beneficence.
• Read the review in the June 2007 Newsletter
A Tradition of Giving: Seventy-Five Years of Myer Family Philanthropy
Michael Liffman. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2005
A refreshing change to the American and European-dominated literature on philanthropy, this biography relates the story of the nineteenth-century Belarus-born Simcha Baevski, who changed his name, built up a department store empire and became Australia's most prominent philanthropist. Myer philanthropy remains a major force in Australian philanthropy, and the evolution of its grant-making provides a fascinating perspective on the unfolding of the social history of that country.
