A partial, working, list of works that critically examine philanthropic foundations.
- Arnove, Robert F. (Ed.). 1980. Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism: The Foundations at home and Abroad. Boston, Mass: G.K. Hall and Co.
- Arnove, Robert F. and Nadine Pinede. 2007. "Revisiting the 'Big Three' Foundations." Critical Sociology 33: 389-425.
- Barker, Michael. 2008. "The Liberal Foundations of Environmentalism: Revisiting the Rockefeller-Ford Connection." Capitalism Nature Socialism 19, 2: 15-42.
- Barker, Michael. 2008. "The Liberal Foundations of Media Reform? Creating Sustainable Funding Opportunities for Radical Media Reform." Global Media Journal. 1, 1. (also here)
- Barker, Michael. "The Ford Foundation and the Co-option of Dissent." Swans 25 January 2010.
- Berman, Edward H. 1983. The Ideology of Philanthropy: The Influence of the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations on American Foreign Policy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
- Brison, Jeffrey D. 2005. Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Canada: American Philanthropy and the Arts and Letters in Canada. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press.
- Collier, Peter and David Horowitz. 1976. The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
- Coon, Horace. 1938. Money to Burn: What the great American philanthropic foundations do with their money. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press.
- Cumings, Bruce. 1998. "Boundary Displacement: Area Studies and International Studies During and After the Cold War," in Christopher Simpson, Ed. 1998. Universities and Empire: Money and Politics in the Social Sciences During the Cold War. New York: The New Press: 159-188.
- Fisher, Donald. 1983. "The Role of Philanthropic Foundations in the Reproduction and Production of Hegemony: Rockefeller Foundations and the Social Sciences." Sociology 17 (May 1983: 207-32).
- Guilhot, Nicolas. 2007. "Reforming the World: George Soros, Global Capitalism and the Philanthropic Management of the Social Sciences." Critical Sociology 33: 447-477.
- Horowitz, David. 1969. "The Foundations [Charity begins at home]." Ramparts (April: 38-48).
- Horowitz, David. 1969. "Billion Dollar Brains: How Wealth Puts Knowledge in its Pocket." Ramparts (May: 36-44).
- Horowitz, David. 1969. "Sinews of Empire." Ramparts (Oct. 32-42).
- Incite! Women of Color Against Violence (Ed.). 2007. The Revolution will not be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex. Cambridge, Mass: South End Press.
- Parmar, Inderjeet. 2002. "American Foundations and the development of international knowledge networks." Global Networks 2, 1: 13-30.
- Roelofs, Joan. 2003. Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
- Roelofs, Joan. 2006. "The NED. NGOs and the Imperial Uses of Philanthropy." Counterpunch 13/14 May.
- Roelofs, Joan. 2007. "Foundations and Collaboration." Critical Sociology 33: 479-504.
- Saunders, Frances Stonor. 1999. The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters.
- Silk, Leonard & Mark Silk. 1980. The American Establishment. New York: Basic Books, Inc.
- Whitaker, Ben. 1974. The Philanthropoids: Foundations and Society. New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc.
- Wilford, Hugh. 2008. The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America.