The Rockefeller Foundation, the Social Sciences, and the Humanities in the Cold War

Abstract

This article surveys the activities and funding priorities of the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) during the first two decades of the Cold War, from the mid-1940s through the mid-1960s. Drawing on documents from the RF's own archive as well as Western government repositories, the article focuses on the foundation's support for research in the social sciences and the humanities. The article first gives an overview of RF policies and grants during the early Cold War and then discusses the political dimension of the foundation's philanthropic practices. The main part of the article looks in detail at two specific RF projects in the humanities and social sciences that exemplify the political and intellectual features of the early Cold War. The final section considers the nature of modernity, modernization, and the Cold War.

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