Davies’ review explores the history of transnational voluntary associations in multiple sectors, including humanitarianism, science, education, environment, feminism, race, health, human rights, labour, business, standards, professions, culture, peace, religion, and youth. It argues that the historical evolution of transnational voluntary associations is longer, less Western in origin and more cyclical than traditionally assumed.

"Reviewed here is global research on how 13 types of Voluntary Membership Associations (MAs) have significantly or substantially had global impacts on human history, societies, and life. Such outcomes have occurred especially in the past 200+ years since the Industrial Revolution circa 1800 CE, and its accompanying Organizational Revolution. Emphasized are longer-term, historical, and societal or multinational impacts of MAs, rather than more micro-level (individual) or meso-level (organizational) outcomes. MAs are distinctively structured, with power coming from the membership, not top-down. The author has characterized MAs as the dark matter of the nonprofit/third sector, using an astrophysical metaphor. Astrophysicists have shown that most physical matter in the universe is dark in the sense of being unseen, not stars or planets."--Page 4 of cover

The first English-language study of German-Japanese interwar relations to employ sources in both languages.

Migration has changed the social, cultural, political, and economic landscape of many countries. Mutual aid organizations, ethic-oriented religious organizations, hometown associations, and various other types of ethnic and immigrant organizations emerged to respond to the particular needs of immigrant communities. For countries with a tradition of civic participation, integrating immigrants into civic life becomes an important issue. This article reviews the literature on ethnic/immigrant associations and minorities’ or immigrants’ voluntary participation in major developed countries that have experienced a significant increase of immigrants, particularly after the 1990s. In terms of ethnic/immigrant associations, the author reviews the historical background of research in this area, the size and scope, the formation and development, the memberships, and the financial well-being of these associations, the roles they play in helping immigrants acculturate into the host countries, and the classification of ethnic/immigrant associations. Particular attention is given to immigrants’ mutual aid organizations, ethnic cultural organizations, ethnic-oriented religious organizations, and hometown associations. The author also reviews the literature that examines the factors influencing minorities’ and immigrants’ voluntary participation, their formal and informal volunteering, as well we immigrant youth’s voluntary participation.

In the first historical account of international NGOs, from the French Revolution to the present, Thomas Davies places the contemporary debate on transnational civil society in context. In contrast to the conventional wisdom, which sees transnational civil society as a recent development taking place along a linear trajectory, he explores the long history of international NGOs in terms of a cyclical process characterized by three major waves: the era to 1914, the inter-war years, and the period since the Second World War. The breadth of transnational civil society activities explored is unprecedented in its diversity, from business associations to humanitarian organizations, peace groups to socialist movements, feminist organizations to pan-nationalist groups. The geographical scope covered is also extensive, and the analysis is richly supported with reference to a diverse array of previously unexplored sources. By revealing the role of civil society rather than governmental actors in the major trans- formations of the past two-and-a-half centuries, this book is for anyone interested in obtaining a new perspective on world history. The analysis concludes in the second decade of the twenty-first century, providing insights into the trajectory of transnational civil society in the post-9/11 and post-financial crisis eras.

Providing guidance to students, scholars, genealogists, museum docents, and historical society volunteers who seek to investigate the multiplicity of voluntary organisations in America's history, this book includes steps to locate club records, ask appropriate questions of them, and more.