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 André
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 Göttingen
between 1926 and 1929, while the rise of probability and mathematical
statistics owes much to the creation of the Institut Henri Poincaré 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.
