The dilemmas of giving and receiving gifts

By now we will all have received our Christmas gifts – gifts that we wanted and perhaps some that we didn’t. We will also have given a good many presents, but why do we do this? and, in today’s consumer society, is it really still the thought that counts? In her new book Arguing with Anthropology: An Introduction to Critical Theories of the Gift Karen Sykes examines the anthropology of gift-giving.

Of all the new books that have passed over the desks of the Oxbow staff this month, these, for whatever reason, are the ones that grabbed their attention.

New Releases

Making, Moving and Managing: The New World of Ancient Economies, 323-31BC
edited by Zofia H Archibald, John K Davies and Vincent Gabrielsen

This volume of essays approaches the issues involved in the study of ancient economies in terms of their active components - the producers, the organisers, and the transporters. By taking a closer look at how these elements interacted, the contributors have reconstituted the elements of economic behaviour in the ancient world, to show how institutional mechanisms (money supply; the encouragement of city foundations; markets; royal palaces) created frameworks within which goods (oil and wine, cereals, perfumes, ceramics) and services were exchanged. Each chapter engages with the theoretical and material aspects of one of these topics in an original way. The result is an up-to-date approach to ancient economies, which attempts to bridge the gap between the micro scale of small independent communities and the macro scale of territorial powers.