The Culture of Giving
The Culture of Giving
An innovative study of gift-giving, informal support and charity in England between the late sixteenth and early eighteenth centuries. Ilana Krausman Ben-Amos examines the adaptation and transformation of varied forms of informal help, challenging long-held views and assumptions about the decline of voluntary giving and personal obligations in the transition from medieval to modern times. Merging historical research with insights drawn from theories of gift-giving, the book analyses practices of informal support within varied social networks, associations and groups over the entire period. It argues that the processes entailed in the Reformation, state formation and the implementation of the poor laws, as well as market and urban expansion, acted as powerful catalysts for many forms of informal help. Within certain boundaries, the early modern era witnessed the diversification, increase and invigoration, rather than the demise, of gift-giving and informal support.
- Offers a comprehensive account of practices of giving and support within social networks and associations in early modern England
- Challenges the assumption that personal obligations and informal giving declined in the transition from medieval to modern times
- Will appeal to scholars working on early modern and modern British social, cultural and economic history
Reviews & endorsements
"Ben-Amos captures the quality of these diverse kinds of giving with great success, comprehensively surveying the existing literature about them, and charting in detail the ways in which they changed between the 1580s and 1740s... The result is a wealth of information on subjects as different as the texture of family and business life, and the amounts available from various sources for relief of the poor." - Paul Slack, Times Literary Supplement
"Ben-Amos has written a model of social history blending theory with specific examples. Highly recommended." -Choice
"The traditional historiography on charities has had a limited focus on the vicissitudes of bequests and charitable organizations, but Ilana Krausman Ben-Amos works here with a much wider lens. The Culture of Giving is concerned less with organized giving than with the social and cultural history of exchange as it is most broadly defined." Susannah Ottaway, Journal of British Studies
Product details
January 2011Adobe eBook Reader
9780511839436
0 pages
0kg
This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Part I. Social Spaces and Reciprocities:
- 1. Parents and offspring
- 2. Networks of support
- 3. Parishes, guilds, associations
- 4. The charitable gift
- Part II. The Economy of Giving:
- 5. Cultivating the obligation to give
- 6. Honour and reputation
- 7. Discourses of giving
- 8. The perils of gifts
- Part III. The State, Markets and Gifts:
- 9. Evolving boundaries
- 10. The invigoration of informal support
- Conclusion.
