Gift of European Thought and the Cost of Living

Vassos Argyrou is Reader in Social Anthropology in the School of Social Sciences, University of Hull. His publications include Tradition and Modernity in the Mediterranean: The Wedding as Symbolic Struggle (Cambridge University Press, 1996), Anthropology and the Will to Meaning: A Postcolonial Critique (Pluto Press, 2002), and The Logic of Environmentalism: Anthropology, Ecology and Postcoloniality (Berghahn Books, 2005).

• Chapter 1. The CircleChapter 2. The Gift of European Thought The Postcolonial The Take on/of the Gift The Power of GivingChapter 3. The Economy of Thought The Phenomenon and the Phantom 'Think for yourself' The Socialisation of ThoughtChapter 4. Political Economy Re-volution The Hegemonic Identity PoliticsChapter 5. The Cost of Living Thinking and not Thinking Autonomy and Heteronomy The Cost of LivingReferences

"...an extremely well thought out, interesting and timely piece of work... Its scope and concerns are simply exemplary: this is a book of social theory written by an anthropologist who fully uses the perspective given by his own disciplinary background to question deeply ingrained commonplaces of European thought, in particular the 'critical tradition,' without simply being dismissive of any use of critical thinking." * Arpad Szakolczai, University College Cork