This handbook builds a shared understanding of the troubling politics of philanthropy and the disturbing history and practices of humanitarianism.

While historical work on philanthropy has long suggested a link between imperial rule and humanitarian aid, these insights have only recently been brought to bear on contemporary forms of giving. In this book, contributors link the long history of colonial philanthropy to current foundations and their programs in education, health, migrant care and other social initiatives. They argue that humanitarianism not only alleviates the inequalities wrought by global capitalism to allow for the secure and efficient functioning of the market, but humanitarianism also performs and consolidates liberal market rationalities around efficiency, expansion and increasingly neoliberal entrepreneurialism.

Philanthropy and humanitarianism share a history, growing together out of modernist socio-economic relations and modes of imperial rule. However, the histories and contemporary politics of the two have not been brought together with such breadth or under such a critical lens before. Discussing philanthropy and humanitarianism together, combining both historical scope and contemporary iterations, highlights continuities and convergences-making the volume a unique introduction and critical overview of critical work in these sister-fields.