Neal B. Freeman is the founder and former chairman of The Blackwell Corporation, chairman of the Foundation Management Institute; director of the National Civic Art Society; and chairman of the Neal and Jane Freeman Foundation. In his television career, Freeman produced more than one thousand programs for national broadcast: His awards for journalistic excellence include the Peabody and Emmy. The former editor of King Features, Freeman was associated for many years with his friend, William F. Buckley, Jr. An editor and columnist for National Review magazine, he was the founding producer of the Firing Line television series, and is the author of the acclaimed book, Skirmishes.

LARRY P. ARNN is the president of Hillsdale College, where he is also a professor of politics and history. He graduated with the highest distinction from Arkansas State University in 1974, and earned his M.A. in Government in 1976 and his Ph.D. in Government in 1985 from the Claremont Graduate School. He also spent three years studying in England, during which time he served as director of research for Martin Gilbert (1936–2015), the official biographer of Winston Churchill. From 1985 to 2000 he served as president of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. Published widely in newspapers, magazines, and periodicals on issues of public policy, history, and political theory, Dr. Arnn is the author of Liberty and Learning: The Evolution of American Education, e Founders’ Key: The Divine and Natural Connection Between the Declaration and the Constitution and What We Risk by Losing It, and Churchill’s Trial: Winston Churchill and the Salvation of Free Government.

LARRY P. ARNN is the president of Hillsdale College, where he is also a professor of politics and history. He graduated with the highest distinction from Arkansas State University in 1974, and earned his M.A. in Government in 1976 and his Ph.D. in Government in 1985 from the Claremont Graduate School. He also spent three years studying in England, during which time he served as director of research for Martin Gilbert (1936–2015), the official biographer of Winston Churchill. From 1985 to 2000 he served as president of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. Published widely in newspapers, magazines, and periodicals on issues of public policy, history, and political theory, Dr. Arnn is the author of Liberty and Learning: The Evolution of American Education, e Founders’ Key: The Divine and Natural Connection Between the Declaration and the Constitution and What We Risk by Losing It, and Churchill’s Trial: Winston Churchill and the Salvation of Free Government.

In the Preface to this volume, editor Larry P. Arnn summarizes the significance of these seven months to Churchill and to the many peoples of the world: “The final volume of Churchill’s The Second World War is entitled Triumph and Tragedy. The documents in this volume exhibit both. Thee end of the war brought joy and relief to Churchill and to millions around the world. The emergence of the Soviet Union as a dominant and expanding tyranny, its control established in Eastern Europe and stretching across Asia to the Pacific, brought grief and apprehension to Churchill and tragedy to millions more. Meanwhile, famine and disease stalked through the rubble of Europe. Churchill wrote to his wife on February 1: ‘The misery of the whole world appals me and I fear increasingly that new struggles may arise out of those we are successfully ending.’”

 Wealthy and prestigious colleges, Wooster documents, have treated donors shamefully. The donors’ own staff and assistants have betrayed the vision of the men and women who gave them the money they now abuse. Even family members have utterly disregarded how their ancestors wanted the fruits of their labor to be used. Billions upon billions of dollars that were earned in the American marketplace by titans of industry are now in the hands of treacherous philanthropic elites who use that wealth to attack the very system that generated it.

 So if you’re a donor contemplating how to structure your giving, I suggest you skim some of the detailed history in Part I of this book, which lays out the leading horror stories of American philanthropy. Then you may want to skim more slowly through Part II, where Wooster tells the stories of luckier families, who have achieved better results through careful planning and hard work.

 Lastly, you should focus your attention most keenly on the final chapter, which features practical advice based on the histories in Parts I and II—because you must face the brutal fact that it is not easy to give well, even while you’re living. After you’re gone, the odds of successful giving are stacked even higher against you.

 Scholars of philanthropy, on the other hand, will want to savor every word of Wooster’s fascinating history, which unearths so many little-known details of this critical aspect of American giving. Perhaps those scholars will also have a pang of guilt at their own neglect of this topic, because only four books have ever been written on this history: namely, the first, second, third, and now fourth edition of this work.