“The Gift in Antiquity offers a rousing demonstration of the lessons to be learned from Marcel Mauss’s early insight that gift-giving offers a privileged way to understand social relations and social obligations. While many anthologies are useful for the one or two essays they contain, this volume offers a tightly organized collection useful as a reader in classics, religion, or anthropology courses.” – John S. The essays engage Mauss’s model, offering critique and nuance, and sometimes push Mauss’s insights far beyond what he had imagined. “The Gift in Antiquity is an exciting and learned dialogue with Marcel Mauss’s The gift: Forms and functions of exchange in archaic societies, published ninety years ago. Takes an explicitly cross-cultural approach to the study of ancient history Excerpts of Reviews. Generates unique insights into gift-giving and reciprocity in antiquity.Organizes essays around theoretical concerns rather than chronologically.Features a collection of original essays that cover such wide-ranging topics as vows in the Hebrew Bible ancient Greek wedding gifts Hellenistic civic practices Latin literature Roman and Jewish burial practices and Jewish and Christian religious gifts.The Gift in Antiquity presents a collection of 14 original essays that apply French sociologist Marcel Mauss’s notion of gift-giving to the study of antiquity.
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