Making use of untapped resources, Seim looks at the impact of the Rockefellers, viewed through the lens of their philanthropic support of social science from 1890-1940. Focusing specifically on the Rockefeller Foundation and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, Seim connects the family's business success with its philanthropic enterprises.

Hamilton Cravens challenges widespread belief to argue that the impact of evolutionary ideas on American culture and science has been greater since the collapse of Social Darwinism. he portrays a new generation of American scientists whose pioneering work led to the bitterly debated heredity-environment controversy in the 1920s and then, in the '30s, to a "synthetic" theory of the way heredity and environment together have shaped human nature and culture. The resolution of this issue seemed to hold an exhilarating promise. If scientists could explain—and even predict—human behavior, they might help restore social control and stability in an age of domestic ferment and international turmoil. The Triumph of Evolution is the first scholarly history of one of the most significant scientific controversies of the twentieth century.

Originally published in 1938, this is a classic muckraking account of the role of philanthropic foundations. Horace Coon's journalistic indictment of the state of philanthropy in the 1920s and 1930s emphasizes how great wealth perpetuates itself through the mechanism of the foundation. Coon looks at how foundations influence education and public thinking, the extent to which they support scientific, medical, and social science research, and their financial operations. But "Money to Burn "is more than an example of what we today would call investigative journalism. It is also one of the first serious efforts to describe the history of modern American philanthropy. Coon discusses the origins of philanthropic foundations in Western history and the establishment of the Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations, reviews the founders' motives, and launches a biting critique in the context of the economic disaster of the Great Depression. He grapples with the concept of the foundation as a "semi-public institution" that links political, economic, and public concerns, and he questions what degree of accountability to the public is appropriate. While Coon's interpretive criticism of the American philanthropic foundations reflects the political and economic concerns of the late 1930s, it stays honestly close to the facts. "Money ""to "Burn ""can be read profitably today as both a good general history of the emergence of modern American philanthropy and as an example of the public's concern with concentration of money and power at the end of the 1930s. Money to Burn, another volume in the Philanthropy in Society series, will be of interest to social scientists, philanthropists, public policy analysts, and decision makers interested in the role of the voluntary sector in American society.

The central focus of this collection of essays is the role and place of freedom of religion in the protection and promotion of world order. The volume offers competing models of world order from a global perspective and highlights the lack of consensus and considerable variety of practice and belief around the globe as to the definition of religious freedom and where and whether freedom of religion is regarded as the first freedom in the world. The leading theories of freedom of religion are discussed and provide an understanding of freedom of religion beyond the nation state. The liberal view at the global level is also examined and observations are included regarding the need to rethink secularism in the light of present circumstances and within the global context.

The rapid rise in immigration over the past few decades has transformed the American social landscape, while the need to understand its impact on society has led to a burgeoning research literature. Predominantly non-European and of varied cultural, social, and economic backgrounds, the new immigrants present analytic challenges that cannot be wholly met by traditional immigration studies. Immigration Research for a New Century demonstrates how sociology, anthropology, history, political science, economics, and other disciplines intersect to answer questions about today's immigrants. In Part I, leading scholars examine the emergence of an interdisciplinary body of work that incorporates such topics as the social construction of race, the importance of ethnic self-help and economic niches, the influence of migrant-homeland ties, and the types of solidarity and conflict found among migrant populations. The authors also explore the social and national origins of immigration scholars themselves, many of whom came of age in an era of civil rights and ethnic reaffirmation, and may also be immigrants or children of immigrants. Together these essays demonstrate how social change, new patterns of immigration, and the scholars' personal backgrounds have altered the scope and emphases of the research literature, allowing scholars to ask new questions and to see old problems in new ways. Part II contains the work of a new generation of immigrant scholars, reflecting the scope of a field bolstered by different disciplinary styles. These essays explore the complex variety of the immigrant experience, ranging from itinerant farmworkers to Silicon Valley engineers. The demands of the American labor force, ethnic, racial, and gender stereotyping, and state regulation are all shown to play important roles in the economic adaptation of immigrants.The ways in which immigrants participate politically, their relationships among themselves, their attitudes toward naturalization and citizenship, and their own sense of cultural identity are also addressed. Immigration Research for a New Century examines the complex effects that immigration has had not only on American society but on scholarship itself, and offers the fresh insights of a new generation of immigration researchers.