Mifsud writes a history and theory of rhetoric and the gift in order to open up the problems and possibilities of the gift/giving dimensions of communication. She asks whether communication with exchange as its root, and with its prefix and suffix ensuring systematic exchange with others, by definition entraps people in an economic system, with all of its constraining qualities of debt, obligation, duty, and sacrifice. Can communication ever be free, she wonders, and should it. Annotation ©2016 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)