The work is concerned with the contradiction between the gift and the commodity and the essentials of the corresponding modes of human being. An answer is sought to how and why the gift is constituted as the essence of archaic mode of being and production. A paradigm focusing on internal causes of underdevelopment is also presented. According to that perspective the gift becomes a ghost in the modern machinery of the commodity in the present-day Third World, disturbing economy and administration from within. In this alien context, the gift effects a displacement of essence of economic relationships and appears, now as corruption, theft, nepotism, bribe. deals shortly with basic archaic gift-structures as expressed in various terms, ranging from relations of sexes to those of ritual natures. A key issue is the difference between archaic and modern mind and labour. It is argued that the different modalities of archaic organization possess a different potency for development of the materially based relations. The course of development runs towards relative independency of the economic from mentally based relations as erected on communication of social meaning and norms or petrified rules. The gift society finally gives rise to its negation, the commodity, which through the dynamism and accomplishments of capital will, hopefully, give way to its own negation in human ethics, ownness and reason as the principles of socio-economic organization and planning. and history, and is concerned with basic rather than applied research. The illustration of theoretical points often derives from the authors' fieldwork among the Sinhalese and their experience of Bangladeshian society. Besides, some major normative-communicative relationships of the Sinhalese, including the marriage system, the traditional property system and the caste system, are dealt with separately in selected fieldnotes towards the end of the work.

The first full-length academic study to deal exclusively with female stardom in British cinema.

This book is an English version of the book originally published in French under the title of Economies et societes en Grece ancienne. The opportunity has been taken to correct some errors, update bibliographical references, add a few passage to the selection of ancient sources, and improve the material presentation in several respects. But otherwise this remains substantially the same book as the original French version.The book is aimed in the first place at an undergraduate audience, though it is hoped that it will also be of interest to a wiser, non-specialist readership interested in the history and civilization of Ancient Greece. It attempts to meet a need well-known to all those who have to teach Greek history in universities. Students, long dissatisfied with a purely political approach to Greek history, ask for more 'economic and social' history. One then has to answer--tand this book is a very modest attempt at an answer--that neither the 'economic' nor the 'social' category had in the Greek city the same independent status they now enjoy. The book takes its starting-point in this ambiguity; it accepts the challenge, but rejects the formulation of the question. Anyone who has been asked to explain once and for all the role played by slaves in social conflicts in the Greek world will understand what we mean. — Publisher description.

On March 17, 2015, Brill was informed that the article by Francisco Gómez Camacho S. J., "Later Scholastics: Spanish Economic Thought in the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries," in Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas and Concepts of Social Justice, ed. S. Todd Lowry and Barry Gordon (Leiden: Brill, 1998), pp. 503-561 suffers from serious citation problems and that in some cases the original sources are never mentioned at all. It goes without saying that Brill strongly disapproves of such practices, which represent a serious breach of publication integrity. Brill condemns any violation of the authors' rights and the copyrights of the publishers, and distances itself from these practices. As a result Brill cannot stand behind the noted material as originally contained in this volume and for these reasons formally retracts the article by Francisco Gómez Camacho and also the volume. The volume will no longer be available in its current form. (Blurb: 13 scholars contribute to this survey of past discussions of the workings of economic structures and of justice in interpersonal relations, cultural institutions and the social order. They investigate the sources in each historic period from the world of the Old Testament and the ancient Greeks through to Spanish scholasticism and its offshoots in the Spanish Americas of the 18th century and relate the ideas of writers from the past to modern discussions.)

An exercise in cultural sociology, Moral Codes and Social Structure in Ancient Greece seeks to explicate the dynamic currents of classical Hellenic ethics and social philosophy by situating those idea-complexes in their socio-historical and intellectual contexts. Central to this enterprise is a comprehensive historical-sociological analysis of the Polis form of social organization, which charts the evolution of its basic institutions, roles, statuses, and class relations. From the Dark Age period of "genesis" on to the Hellenistic era of "eclipse" by the emergent forces of imperial patrimonialism, Polis society promoted and sustained corresponding normative codes which mobilized and channeled the requisite emotive commitments and cognitive judgments for functional proficiency under existing conditions of life. The aristocratic warrior-ethos canonized in the Homeric epics; the civic ideology of equality and justice espoused by reformist lawgivers and poets; the democratization of status honor and martial virtue that attended the shift to hoplite warfare; the philosophical exaltation of the Polis-citizen bond as found in the architectonic visions of Plato and Aristotle; and the subsequent retreat from civic virtues and the interiorization of value articulated by the Skeptics, Epicureans, and Stoics, new age philosophies in a world remade by Alexander's conquests--these are the key phases in the evolving currents of Hellenic moral discourse, as structurally framed by transformations within the institutional matrix of Polis society.

An engaging look at how ancient Greeks and Romans crafted laws that fit--and, in turn, changed--their worlds

Markets, Households and City-States in the Ancient Greek Economy brings together sixteen essays by leading scholars of the ancient Greek economy. The essays investigate the role of market-exchange in the economy of the ancient Greek world in the Classical and Hellenistic periods.

Introduces readers to the cross-cultural study of ancient and classical civilizations. The book is divided into two sections, the first examining the ongoing interaction between ancient agrarian and nomadic societies and the second focusing on regional patterns in the dissemination of ideas.

What made ancient cities successful? What are the similarities between modern cities and ancient ones? The Social Construction of Ancient Cities offers a fresh perspective on ancient cities and the social networks and relations that built and sustained them, marking a dramatic change in the way archaeologists approach them. Examining ancient cities from a “bottom up” perspective, the authors in this volume explore the ways in which cities were actually created by ordinary inhabitants. They track the development of urban space from the point of view of individuals and households, providing new insights into cities' roles as social centers as well as focal points of political and economic activities. Analyzing various urban communities from residences and neighborhoods to marketplaces and ceremonial plazas, the authors examine urban centers in Africa, Mesoamerica, South America, Mesopotamia, the Indian subcontinent, and China. Collectively they demonstrate how complex networks of social relations and structures gave rise to the formation of ancient cities, contributed to their cohesion, and sustained their growth, much as they do in modern urban centers. The authors' analyses draw from ancient texts as well as archaeological surveys and excavations of urban architecture and other material remains, including portable objects for daily use and comestibles. They show clearly how early urban dwellers consciously developed dense interdependent social networks to satisfy their needs for food, housing, and employment, forged their own urban identities, and generally managed to thrive in the crowded, bustling, and competitive environment that characterized ancient cities. Not least of all, they suggest how urban leaders and urban dwellers negotiated a consensus that enabled them to achieve both mundane and extraordinary goals, in the process establishing their unique ritual, legal, and social status.

In Ancient Virtues and Vices in Modern Popular Culture, Eran Almagor and Lisa Maurice offer a comprehensive collection of chapters dealing with the reception of antiquity in popular media of the modern era (19th-21st centuries). These media include theatrical plays, cinematic representations, Television drama, popular newspapers or journals, poems and outdoor festivals. For the first time in Classical Reception Studies, ancient Jewish literature and imagery are included in the discussion. The focus of the volume is both the continuity and variance between ancient and modern sets of values, which appear in the new interpretations of the ancient stories, figures and protagonists.