Altruism, Gifts and Symbolic Exchange: From Comte, to Durkheim, Mauss and Bourdieu

By Philippe Steiner

Altruism, gifts and symbolic exchange refer to a vast set of practices deeply embedded in our market societies. They were successively theorized by Auguste Comte, Marcel Mauss, and Pierre Bourdieu. This book follows the outline of a history that has hitherto been glimpsed only as a series of fragments and which needs to be reassembled in order to see its full scope. This history is structured in terms of three stages: a critique of political economy, a theoretical construction backed by empirical practices, and, finally, an assessment of the social effects of the dissemination of economic knowledge.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9004422463
• ISBN13: 9789004422469
• Release Date: November 2025
• Publisher: Brill
• Length: 226 Pages
• Weight: 1.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 9.3"