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  1. Home
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  3. The Culture of Giving
  • Cited by 52
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
May 2010
Print publication year:
2008
Online ISBN:
9780511720956
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511720956
Subjects:
Social and Population History, British History: General Interest, British History after 1450, European History: General Interest, History
Series:
Cambridge Social and Cultural Histories (12)
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Book description

An innovative study of gift-giving, informal support and charity in England between the late sixteenth and early eighteenth centuries. Ilana Krausman Ben-Amos examines the adaptation and transformation of varied forms of informal help, challenging long-held views and assumptions about the decline of voluntary giving and personal obligations in the transition from medieval to modern times. Merging historical research with insights drawn from theories of gift-giving, the book analyses practices of informal support within varied social networks, associations and groups over the entire period. It argues that the processes entailed in the Reformation, state formation and the implementation of the poor laws, as well as market and urban expansion, acted as powerful catalysts for many forms of informal help. Within certain boundaries, the early modern era witnessed the diversification, increase and invigoration, rather than the demise, of gift-giving and informal support.

Reviews

Review of the hardback:'Ben-Amos captures the quality of these diverse kinds of giving with great success, comprehensively surveying the existing literature about them, and charting in detail the ways in which they changed between the 1580s and 1740s … The result is a wealth of information on subjects as different as the texture of family and business life, and the amounts available from various sources for relief of the poor.'

Paul Slack Source: The Times Literary Supplement

Review of the hardback:'The Culture of Giving is a fascinating and wide-ranging treatment of an elusive topic: gifting, charity and networks in early modern England.'

Source: Local Population Studies

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