Stone Age Economics

Marshall Sahlins is Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago.

'Sahlins’ forays into economic anthropology are full of interest.' - Cyril S. Belshaw, American Anthropologist'The most sophisticated, extensive presentation, and argument in and about, the field of economic anthropology' - Walter C. Neale, Science'This book is subversive to so many of the fundamental assumptions of Western technological society that it is a wonder it was permitted to be published. Calling on extensive research among the planet's remaining stone-age societies—in Africa, Australia and South-East Asia as well as anecdotal reports from early explorers, Professor Sahlins directly challenges the idea that Western civilization has provided greater 'leisure' or 'affluence,' or even greater reliability, than 'primitive' hunter-gatherers.' - Whole Earth Review'So rich in factual evidence and in ideas that a brief review cannot do it justice' - E. Evans-Pritchard, Times Literary Supplement'If our species is to survive, we’re going to have to come up with a new economic discipline which starts from very different questions ... there is perhaps no single work of anthropology that so lends itself to this task as Stone Age Economics.' - David Graeber, London School of Economics, UK

• Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 The Original Affluent Society -- 2 The Domestic Mode of Production: The Structure of Underproduction -- 3 The Domestic Mode of Production: Intensification of Production -- 4 The Spirit of the Gift -- 5 On the Sociology of Primitive Exchange -- 6 Exchange Value and the Diplomacy of Primitive Trade Bibliography Index.