'This complex, brilliant work succeeds in breaking out of that ethnographic straitjacket by remaining inconclusive and perplexed in what it reveals: as much an image of American intellectual quandaries as Chambri ones, and neither in isolation.' The Times Higher Education Supplement

• List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Part I. Cultural Premises: 1. Entropy and the nature of indebtedness; 2. Names and personal identity; 3. The enactment of power; 4. The construction of society; Part II. Social Action: 5. Politics and the relationship between husbands and wives; 6. The mutual dependence of brothers and sisters; 7. Marriage and the confluence of interests; 8. The monetization of social relationships; Conclusion: the significance of cultural alternatives; Notes; References; Index.

'This complex, brilliant work succeeds in breaking out of that ethnographic straitjacket by remaining inconclusive and perplexed in what it reveals: as much an image of American intellectual quandaries as Chambri ones, and neither in isolation.' The Times Higher Education Supplement

• List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Part I. Cultural Premises: 1. Entropy and the nature of indebtedness; 2. Names and personal identity; 3. The enactment of power; 4. The construction of society; Part II. Social Action: 5. Politics and the relationship between husbands and wives; 6. The mutual dependence of brothers and sisters; 7. Marriage and the confluence of interests; 8. The monetization of social relationships; Conclusion: the significance of cultural alternatives; Notes; References; Index.