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The gift: Imagination and the erotic life of property Hardcover – 1983

by Lewis Hyde (Author)

18 customer reviews

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Product Details

Hardcover: 328 pages
Publisher: Random House; 1St Edition edition (1983)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0394523016
ISBN-13: 978-0394523019
Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,810,687 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #26736 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Anthropology > Cultural

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Customer Reviews

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3 star		11%
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68 of 73 people found the following review helpful

In the face of the je ne sais quoi.

By Sanson Corrasco on October 3, 2003

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

Years ago there was a reader comment in Harper's Magazine to the effect that the spirit of a place is a residue of emotions from the person who cared for it. Examples were the backseat of a taxicab and a favorite aunt's guest bedroom. Imagine the one, a robotic garage worker, mindlessly vacuuming and swabbing, and now Aunt Sally in a sunny kitchen starching linens and putting flowers in a vase.
The reader was attempting to pinpoint a distinction of spirit that we recognize but can't define. Lewis Hyde confronts this problem as he tries to explain the difference between schlock and art. It is the dilemma that so vexed Potter Stewart as he tried to define pornography-"I know it when I see it, but I can't say what it is." Like Potter Stewart, Hyde can give examples, but no explanation. Hyde, however, is too game for surrender in the face of the ineffable.
Hyde starts with a hypothesis: Art acquires a spiritual quality that comes from a giving heart, And a corollary: The spiritual quality of art is lost if disrespected by the recipient. Hyde hypothesizes that the artist, recipient of an unearned talent from a giving god, must share it in turn with a giving heart. (Does this mean art cannot be sold? Oops, we're getting ahead ... .)
In seven chapters, two questions predominate: What is the spiritual quality that differentiates gifts from non-gifts ("commodities" in Hyde's parlance)? And, what is the nature of the disrespect that will so profane the gift as to nullify it? Here are some of his suggestions.
Gifts are not-as some suppose-without strings. (Forget flowers or a `thank you' to Aunt Sally, you'll see.) Rather, gifts and commodities differ because gifts are ambiguous and variable as to value.Read more ›

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55 of 60 people found the following review helpful

Why isn't this a classic?

By D. Smith on August 30, 1998

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

In many aspects this is an exceptional book. It not only discusses the history of gift in culture but through the work of Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound it discusses the gift in poetry and art as well. The book focuses on the importance of gift, the flow and movement of gift, and the impact that the modern market place has had on the circle of gift.
From the opening pages when Hyde amuzingly discloses the premise of gift by juxtaposing the Indian Giver with White Man Keeper, the book progresses gift through community, folktale and art.
If you have ever been dismayed by the modern or postmodern. If you have ever wanted to make your money, cash out and leave the madness, you should read this book. Not only does it give you hope, it may rejunvenate your idea of community.
Gift is a tremendous piece of scholarship and for it to lay, largely undiscovered, is a shame indeed.

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37 of 40 people found the following review helpful

An unusually memorable book.

By Fred Leason on January 25, 1999

Format: Paperback

I read this more than five years ago. It is scholarly but well written. When I finished it, I wondered how practical it would be. In the last five years, I have thought about it several times. I cannot say that about 90% of the books I have read.
I believe it is a good example of "history of ideas" literature. It is a deconstruction of the notion of economics and commerce. By focusing on the narrow subject of gift giving, it opens the window to a critical understanding of common ideas like "interest," "usury," and "economic community." After all, what makes up a global economy? How do people bind themselves to "beliefs" that enable cooperation.
The book is not prescriptive. Instead, it is provocative to the extent that it challenges assumptions. I recommend it to the reader who is looking for an intellectual escape into the historically possible.

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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

The other half of economics

By James Sterling on April 30, 2004

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The first essay in this compilation of three is one of those pieces that can potentially change a person's life. Any student of the social sciences becomes aware that there are many important exchanges made in society which are not and cannot be valued in market transactions. Hyde offers a thoughtful analysis of the social function of goods and services exchanged outside the structure of the market. These arguments are essential as a counterbalance to the positivism expressed in most economic thought today.
A good deal of the material from which Hyde draws can be found in Marcel Mauss's book, also called in English, *The Gift* (Essai sur le don). Anybody who has loved Hyde's book will want to read Mauss's as well.

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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful

Inspiring and full of life

By Willem Noe on January 28, 2001

Format: Paperback

I read this book on the recommendation of a dear friend of mine, and after reading it i can understand why she recommended it. This philosophic and poetic book deals with a very important facet of human lives and societies that is all too often overlooked in economic analyis, namely the act of giving where no market is involved. This book is not your usual and often too facile critique of the market economy. The latter gets its proper due but not only in a negative sense; after all, market economic systems generate goods and choices in a particular area of scarcity in more efficient ways than tried out on other systems. Yes, it is certainly true, as the author points out, that the social act and economics of the commodity exchange is something else entirely than the social act of giving outside of the market economy, and both the analyis and implications in the book make that deservedly clear. As an economist i found the discussion on usury and the different categories of values that can be atttached to a product very interesting and basic. At the same time, I had not yet encountered such an interesting discussion on the act of giving as part of a society and the linkages with a commodity producing market economy. And as a person taking part of society I found the discussion on the creative act of giving and the trace of social bonds this engenders inspiring on a personal level as well. The writer here mixes analysis with what is for me enlightening poetic language, and the role of the artist here is also well put. As other reviewers, I found the first part very interesting while the further discussion on Whitman and Pound was harder going. Although certainly not always an easy read as a scholarly study, I can certainly recommend this unusual book on the abundance and generosity of spirit that living in society can bring, as a conscious act with magic of inspiration.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

Understanding the Gift of Life at a Deeper Level

A good book, a bit to philosophical for me. I like the depths it went to but I had to spend a lot of time processing what I had read. Read more

Published 2 months ago by Suzanne Strisower, Award-winning Author of inspirational Life Purpose Workbook

Most influential books of essays ever written!

One of the most influential book of essays ever written! I can't stress enough how important this book is in understanding the links between the arts and economics. Read more

Published 9 months ago by Ray

a book that gets re-gifted?

i bought this years ago, read it, enjoyed his tales of presents and presentation, gave it to a friend with a dedication, years later, found in a used book store, so i bought it... Read more

Published 13 months ago by Kindle Customer

Insight and Scholarship

Outstanding research in several fields (literary analysis, anthropology, history) allows Lewis Hyde to bring an unexpected and radically new perspective on behavior we usually... Read more

Published on June 20, 2013 by Oscar

rings true

The connections Lewis Hyde makes spawned many spirited conversations. We found applications in working with our children, in building community, and in maintaining a strong... Read more

Published on March 3, 2010 by James D. Jacoby

Familiar naive academic Marxism

This is the familiar naive academic's reduction of culture to the supposed "evils of capitalism," thus its reference to Ezra Pound, a Communist dupe, and Walt Whitman, a Romantic... Read more

Published on January 23, 2010 by Peter Oliphant

Heart in the right place

Lewis Hyde is, I am certain, an excellent Humanities professor. I have nothing at all against professors of Humanities - on the contrary, I believe that every university should... Read more

Published on July 30, 2006 by Stan Eads

The excerpt alone is full of faulty reasoning.

In the excerpt we are immediately asked to imagine a scene where a boorish colonist mistakes an Indian loan for an Indian gift. Read more

Published on June 24, 2003 by John Baker

The Gift

I would rank this book in the 10 most important I have read. His study of Gift giving throughout history and with different cultures changed my entire view of how we give and... Read more

Published on June 4, 2002 by Paul Van Duinen

Stretched too thin

A colleague, influenced by reading this book years ago, posted a recommendation, and as I am interested in the Sociology of Art and being a for-profit composer, I thought it might... Read more

Published on July 26, 2001 by Barry Drogin