Rockefeller and the Internationalization of Mathematics Between the Two World Wars

"...As mathematicians like George David Birkhoff and Oswald Veblen came increasingly to advise The Rockefeller Foundation's International Education Board (IEB) officials, mathematics began to benefit from Rockefeller philanthropy. Moreover, given the international focus of the Board, this philanthropy contributed in complex ways to the internationalization of science in general and of mathematics in particular. It is precisely this thorny historical problem of the Foundation's role in the internationalization of mathematics between the two World Wars that Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze confronts in his meticulously researched and abundantly illustrated book... The book closes with a mere three-page "Epilogue" that could rather have been a true concluding chapter to a book that raises so many fascinating and complex issues. Still, Siegmund-Schultze has provided us with a wealth of data, a bounty of archival material, and much to think about as we continue to grapple with the social history of mathematics in the twentieth century." -MAA Online

• I Introduction: The “Internationalization” of Mathematics and the Interests Therein of Scientists and Philanthropists.- II The Political and Economic Conditions for International Scientific Collaboration After World War I and the Situation in Mathematics.- III General Ideological and Political Positions Underlying the IEB’s Activities.- IV The Practice of the Fellowship Programs of IEB (1923-1928) and RF (After 1928), and the Particular Situation of Mathematics.- V The Institute Projects in Europe 1926-1928: Göttingen, Paris, a Project Turned Down in Djursholm, and an Excursus on the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.- VI The Emergency Program of the RF After 1933 and Changing Attitudes of the RF Vis-À-Vis Mathematics Before the War: Mathematics Caught Between New Scientific Orientations and Catastrophic Political Developments.- VII Epilogue.- Notes.- Appendices.- 1. Proposal by the Physicists of Göttingen for Support From the IEB 1924.- 2. A Memo by English Mathematician G.H.Hardy Asking for Support for a New Journal 1924.- 3. Nikolaj Lusin’s Application for a IEB Fellowship, March 27, 1926.- 4. Paul Montel (1944) on the Origin of Plans for the Institut Henri Poincare in May 1926.- 5. A Memorandum by Augustus Trowbridge (lEB) on a Meeting With ?mile Borel Concerning Plans for the Foundation of an Institute for Mathematics and Mathematical Physics in Paris (May 1926).- 6. Report by A. Trowbridge on His trip to Göttingen July 2 Through July 4, 1926.- 7. G.D. Birkhoffs Report to the IEB of September 1926 Concerning His Trip to Europe.- 8. Richard Courant’s Assessment of American Mathematics as of 1927.- 9. IEB-Fellow Heinz Hopf 1928 on the Exemplary Sports Facilities at American Universities.