“Not only is Guyer extremely attentive to the wealth of connotations stirred by every word, in every language she is also attuned to understanding Mauss’ essay in the context in which it was written. Keith Hart, author of The Memory Bank: Money in an Unequal World This long overdue publication will transform the essay’s reception, and stands to correct a text whose fame far surpasses most readers’ grasp of its meaning.”
Guyer has restored that context and has made the sociological argument more explicit. Previous English translations were taken out of their historical context. Yet, the opposition that he attacked-gift economy versus market economy-is often attributed to Mauss himself. “Marcel Mauss wrote The Gift to refute the contrast between free gifts and self-interested markets. Maurice Godelier, author of The Enigma of the Gift Guyer proves to be a skilled guide in navigating its perilous currents by giving us a nuanced translation that explores the text’s most secluded coves.” “The Gift is like a river that carries an immense mass of facts set in motion by Mauss’ vision. 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. 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. Frazer, Bronislaw Malinowski, and others. 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. 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. 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. Scan down a list of essential works in any introduction to anthropology course and you are likely to see Marcel Mauss’ masterpiece, The Gift. Selected, Annotated, and Translated by Jane I.
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