Jeff's Reviews > The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World

It's become common sense to talk about artistic creation as part of our market economy, complicating the pressures of artistic creation with expectations for artists to then function as business people to sell, promote, and distribute their creations as well as make them. Hyde, after an analysis of the notion of the gift in various cultures, and comparison of "gift culture" with "market culture," makes an excellent case that what artists do is better understood as a gift than as a product for sale. It's a compelling argument, eloquently fleshed out with discussions of the work of Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound. One of the best things I've read in a long time.