Marcel Mauss Book order

Scan down a list of essential works in any introduction to anthropology course and you are likely to see Marcel Mauss’ masterpiece, The Gift. With this new translation, Mauss’ classic essay is returned to its original context, published alongside the works that framed its first publication in the 1923–24 issue of L’Année Sociologique. With a critical foreword by Bill Maurer and a new introduction by translator Jane Guyer, this expanded edition is certain to become the standard English version of the essay—a gift that keeps on giving. Included alongside the “Essay on the Gift” are Mauss’ memorial accounts of the work of Émile Durkheim and his colleagues who were lost during World War I, as well as his scholarly reviews of influential contemporaries such as Franz Boas, J. G. Frazer, Bronislaw Malinowski, and others. Read in the context of these additional pieces, the “Essay on the Gift” is revealed as a complementary whole, a gesture of both personal and political generosity: Mauss’ honor for his fallen colleagues; his aspiration for modern society’s recuperation of the gift as a mode of repair; and his own careful, yet critical, reading of his intellectual milieu. The result sets the scene for a whole new generation of readers to study this essay alongside pieces that exhibit the erudition, political commitment, and generous collegial exchange that first nourished the essay into life.-- providedbypublisher

Marcel Mauss (1872-1950) never completed his Doctoral thesis on prayer. Yet his scarcely mentioned introduction (Books I and II) of 176 pages and privately printed in 1909, can be seen as some of his most important work. His argument that much of prayer is a social act will be of great interest to anthropologists, sociologists and theologians. Here, the first English translation to be published, is preceded by a general introduction by W.S.F.Pickering and finally a specific commentary on Mauss's use of ethnographic material.

Marcel Mauss, a prominent social anthropologist, offers a comprehensive exploration of ethnography in his Manuel d'ethnographie, now available in English for the first time. This extensive work, based on over thirty annual lectures aimed at travelers, administrators, and missionaries, addresses essential questions about social phenomena from history and ethnography. Mauss's insights remain relevant and thought-provoking, showcasing his lasting impact on the field of anthropology despite the passage of time.

Offers a fascinating snapshot of magic throughout various cultures as well as deep sociological and religious insights still very much relevant today.

"Since its first publication in English in 1954, Marcel Mauss's Essai sur le Don has been acclaimed as a classic among anthropology texts. A brilliant example of the comparative method, it presents the first systematic study of the custom -- widespread in primitive societies from ancient Rome to present-day Melanesia -- of exchanging gifts." "The gift is a perfect example of what Mauss calls a total social phenomenon, since it involves legal, economic, moral, religious, aesthetic, and other dimensions. He sees the gift exchange as related to individuals and groups as much as to the objects themselves, and his analysis calls into question the social conventions and economic systems that had been taken for granted for so many years." "In a modern translation, introduced by the distinguished anthropologist Mary Douglas, The Gift is essential reading for students of social anthropology and sociology. Book jacket."--Jacket