Gift in Sixteenth-Century France

Natalie Zemon Davis is Henry Charles Lea Professor of History emerita at Princeton University and is currently adjunct professor of history, anthropology, and medieval studies and a senior fellow in the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto. Her many books include The Return of Martin Guerre and Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives.

"Some of us go to enormous lengths to find the gift that will exactly convey all the nuances of a relationship. We hate bribery and, though we cherish the idea of a free gift, we also hate ingratitude. For us this book itself is the perfect gift. A superb study of social life in 16th century France, it is a model of historical anthropology."—Mary Douglas, author of Purity and Danger