The Return of the Gift
European History of a Global Idea

This book is a history of modern European interpretations of the gift in global context.

Harry Liebersohn (Author)

9781107411418, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 25 October 2012

224 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm, 0.34 kg

Review of the hardback: 'Liebersohn has bequeathed a major gift to historians interested not only in the genealogy of the gift in European thought, but in the wider history of solidarity. His book spans confidently across three centuries, multiple disciplinary traditions and national literatures, and several continents.' Kenneth Loiselle, Trinity University

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.

Introduction
1. The crisis of the gift: Warren Hastings and his critics
2. Liberalism, self-interest, and the gift
3. The selfless 'savage': theories of primitive communism
4. Anthropologists and the power of the gift: Boas, Thurnwald, Malinowski
5. Marcel Mauss and the globalized gift
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], European history [HBJD], General & world history [HBG]