ENGLISH

The Return of the Gift: European History of a Global Idea

By Harry Liebersohn

Book information

Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Year
2010
ISBN
9780511782244, 1107002184, 9781107002180
DOI
10.1017/CBO9780511782244
LCC
GT3041.E85 L54 2010
Google Books ID
iwZQbKbyOZ4C
Open Library ID
OL24411662M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
1 MB (1119357 bytes)
Edition
1
Pages
223\223
Orientation
yes
Scanned
no
Time added
2011-08-31 04:54:40

Description

This book is a history of European interpretations of the gift from the mid-seventeenth to the early twentieth century. Reciprocal gift exchange, pervasive in traditional European society, disappeared from the discourse of nineteenth-century social theory only to return as a major theme in twentieth-century anthropology, sociology, history, philosophy, and literary studies. Modern anthropologists encountered gift exchange in Oceania and the Pacific Northwest and returned the idea to European social thought; Marcel Mauss synthesized their insights with his own readings from remote times and places in his famous 1925 essay on the gift, the starting-point for subsequent discussion. The Return of the Gift demonstrates how European intellectual history can gain fresh significance from global contexts.

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