The return of the gift : European history of a global idea / Harry Liebersohn.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Liebersohn, Harry, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gifts--Europe--History.

Gifts.

Ceremonial exchange.

Anthropology--Philosophy.

Anthropology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 210 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

The crisis of the gift : Warren Hastings and his critics

Liberalism, self-interest, and the gift

The selfless "savage" : theories of primitive communism

Anthropologists and the power of the gift : Boas, Thurnwald, Malinowski

Marcel Mauss and the globalized gift.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-511-85350-5

1-107-22043-2

1-282-94381-2

9786612943812

0-511-93232-4

0-511-93098-4

0-511-93369-X

0-511-92846-7

0-511-78224-1

0-511-92595-6

OCLC:

694342118