Stone Age economics (Google eBook)

Marshall D. Sahlins

Transaction Publishers, 1972 - Business & Economics - 348 pages

Stone Age Economics is a classic study of anthropological economics, first published in 1974. As Marshall Sahlins stated in the first edition, "It has been inspired by the possibility of 'anthropological economics,' a perspective indebted rather to the nature of the primitive economies than to the categories of a bourgeois science." Ambitiously tackling the nature of economic life and how to study it comparatively, the book includes six studies which reflect the author's ideas on revising traditional views of the hunter-gatherer and so-called primitive societies, revealing them to be the original affluent society. The book examines notions of production, distribution and exchange in early communities and examines the link between economics and cultural and social factors. It consists of a set of detailed and closely related studies of tribal economies, of domestic production for livelihood, and of the submission of domestic production to the material and political demands of society at large.

Marshall Sahlins is one of the most prominent American anthropologists of our time. He holds the title of Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. His most recent book is How Natives Think: About Captain Cook, for Example.

What people are saying

Review: Stone Age Economics

User Review  - Michael - Goodreads

Though the intervening years have dimmed some of the initial enthusiasm about this book, it remains a seminal work of economic anthropology. Sahlins writing is lucid and relatively easy for even the general reader to follow, but has great impact and persuasiveness.

Review: Stone Age Economics

User Review  - Micahlibris - Goodreads

This was an utterly life-changing and paradigm-shifting book for me--on par with Jared Diamond's Gun's Germs and Steel, but more rigorous and scholarly in its execution. For the light reader, I ...

Contents

• The Original Affluent Society: 1
• The Domestic Mode of Production The Structure of Underproduction: 41
• The Domestic Mode of Production Intensification of Production: 101
• The Spirit of the Gift: 149
• On the Sociology of Primitive Exchange: 185
• Exchange Value and the Diplomacy of Primitive Trade: 277
• Bibliography: 315
• Index: 337

About the author

Marshall Sahlins is one of the most prominent American anthropologists of our time. He holds the title of Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. His most recent book is How Natives Think: About Captain Cook, for Example .

Bibliographic information

• Title: Stone Age economics
• Author: Marshall D. Sahlins
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Transaction Publishers, 1972
• ISBN: 0202010996, 9780202010991
• Length: 348 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / Economic History; Business & Economics / Economics / General; Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural; Social Science / Anthropology / General