<div>When we think of giving gifts, we think of exchanging objects that carry with them economic or symbolic value. But is every valuable thing a potentially exchangeable item, whose value can be transferred? In <i>The Enigma of the Gift</i>, the distinguished French anthropologist Maurice Godelier reassesses the significance of gifts in social life by focusing on sacred objects, which are never exchanged despite the value they possess.<br><br>Beginning with an analysis of the seminal work of Marcel Mauss and Claude L&eacute;vi-Strass, and drawing on his own fieldwork in Melanesia, Godelier argues that traditional theories are flawed because they consider only exchangeable gifts. By explaining gift-giving in terms of sacred objects and the authoritative conferral of power associated with them, Godelier challenges both recent and traditional theories of gift-giving, provocatively refreshing a traditional debate. <br><br>Elegantly translated by Nora Scott, <i>The Enigma of the Gift</i> is at once a major theoretical contribution and an essential guide to the history of the theory of the gift.<br><br><br><br></div>