Philanthropies funded by the Rockefeller family have been
prominent in the social history of the twentieth century for their
involvement in medicine and applied science. This book provides the
first detailed study of their relatively brief but nonetheless
influential foray into the field of mathematics. The careers of a
generation of pathbreakers in modern mathematics, such as S.Banach,
B.L.van der Waerden and Andre Weil, were decisively affected by
their becoming fellows of the Rockefeller-funded International
Education Board in the 1920s. To help promote cooperation between
physics and mathematics Rockefeller funds supported the erection of
the new Mathematical Institute in Gottingen between 1926 and 1929,
while the rise of probability and mathematical statistics owes much
to the creation of the Institut Henri Poincare in Paris by American
philanthropy at about the same time. This account draws upon the
documented evaluation processes behind these personal and
institutional involvements of philanthropies. It not only sheds
light on important events in the history of mathematics and physics
of the 20th century but also analyzes the comparative developments
of mathematics in Europe and the United States. Several of the
documents are given in their entirety as significant witnesses to
the gradual shift of the centre of world mathematics to the USA.
This shift was strengthened by the Nazi purge of German and
European mathematics after 1933 to which the Rockefeller Foundation
reacted with emergency programs that subsequently contributed to
the American war effort. The general historical and political
background of the events discussed in this book is the mixture of
competition and cooperation between the various European countries
and the USA after World War I, and the consequences of the Nazi
dictatorship after 1933. Ideological positions of both the
philanthropists and mathematicians mattered heavily in that
process. Cultural bias in the selection of fellows and of
disciplines supported, and the economic predominance of American
philanthropy, led among other things to a restriction of the
programs to Europe and America, to an uneven consideration of
European candidates, and to preferences for Americans. Political
self-isolation of the Soviet Union contributed to an increasing
alienation of that important mathematical culture from Western
mathematics. By focussing on a number of national cultures the
investigation aims to represent a step toward a true inter-cultural
comparison in mathematics."
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