Payback: The Logic of Retribution in Melanesian Religions

By G.W. Trompf

Book Overview

In this ambitious study, the first monograph on religion and the logic of retribution, Professor Trompf shows how various aspects of payback, both negative and positive, provide the best indices to an understanding of Melanesian views of life. The book explores the reasons why people pay back and opens up a whole new dimension in the cross-cultural study of human consciousness. The author conducts his readers through the most complex anthropological pageant on earth, illustrating his arguments from western New Guinea to Fiji.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521062772
• ISBN13: 9780521062770
• Release Date: May 2008
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 568 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 9.2"