false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179981952m/982241.jpg 982241 2 Must a gift be given freely? How can we tell a gift from a bribe? Are gifts always a part of human relations-or do they lose their power and importance once the market takes hold and puts a price on every exchange? These questions are central to our sense of social relations past and present, and they are at the heart of this book by one of our most interesting and renowned historians. <P>In a wide-ranging look at gift giving in early modern France, Natalie Zemon Davis reveals the ways that gift exchange is crucial to understanding alliance and conflict in family life, economic relations, politics, and religion. Moving from the king's bounty to the beggar's alms, her book explores the modes and meanings of gift giving in every corner of sixteenth-century French society. In doing so, it arrives at a new way of considering gifts-what Davis calls "the gift register"-as a permanent feature of social relations over time. Gift giving, with its own justifications and forms in different periods, can create amity or lead to quarrels and trouble. It mixes the voluntary and the obligatory, with interested bribery at one extreme and inspired gratuitousness at the other. <P>Examining gifts both ethnographically (through archives, letters, and other texts) and culturally (through literary, ethical, and religious sources), Davis shows how coercive features in family life and politics, rather than competition from the market, disrupted the gift system. This intriguing book suggests that examining the significance of gifts can not only help us to understand social relations in the past, but teach us to deal graciously with each other in the present. <P>"Some of us go to enormous lengths to find the gift that will exactly convey all the nuances of a relationship. We hate bribery and, though we cherish the idea of a free gift, we also hate ingratitude. For us this book itself is the perfect gift. A superb study of social life in 16th century France, it is a model of historical anthropology."-Mary Douglas, author of Purity and Danger 967130 9 11 2000 The Gift in Sixteenth-Century France (The Curti Lectures) total:4|5:1|4:1|3:2| 4 15 8 0 982241 0299168840 9780299168841 4 0 3.75 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179981952m/982241.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/982241.The_Gift_in_Sixteenth_Century_France 0 0 false Fri Mar 06 05:50:50 -0800 2009 Fri Mar 06 05:50:55 -0800 2009 982241 0299168840 9780299168841 4 0 3.75 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179981952m/982241.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/982241.The_Gift_in_Sixteenth_Century_France 0 0 false Mon Dec 08 10:23:19 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 08 10:23:19 -0800 2008 982241 0299168840 9780299168841 4 0 3.75 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179981952m/982241.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/982241.The_Gift_in_Sixteenth_Century_France 3 0 false Tue Oct 14 07:10:19 -0700 2008 Wed Aug 27 14:12:42 -0700 2008 Tue Oct 14 07:10:19 -0700 2008 982241 0299168840 9780299168841 4 0 3.75 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179981952m/982241.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/982241.The_Gift_in_Sixteenth_Century_France 0 0 false Mon Jun 02 01:48:43 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 02 01:48:43 -0700 2008 982241 0299168840 9780299168841 4 0 3.75 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179981952m/982241.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/982241.The_Gift_in_Sixteenth_Century_France 0 0 false Mon Jan 07 08:46:28 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 07 08:46:28 -0800 2008 982241 0299168840 9780299168841 4 0 3.75 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179981952m/982241.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/982241.The_Gift_in_Sixteenth_Century_France 5 0 false Fri Dec 07 09:50:14 -0800 2007 Fri Dec 07 09:50:14 -0800 2007 982241 0299168840 9780299168841 4 0 3.75 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179981952m/982241.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/982241.The_Gift_in_Sixteenth_Century_France 4 0 false Tue Sep 25 21:27:18 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 25 21:27:18 -0700 2007 982241 0299168840 9780299168841 4 0 3.75 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179981952m/982241.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/982241.The_Gift_in_Sixteenth_Century_France 3 0 false Thu Jul 12 14:11:58 -0700 2007 Thu Jul 12 14:11:58 -0700 2007 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=982241