The Gift

Lewis Hyde starts from the idea that a work of art is a gift rather than a commodity, and asks how creative work survives in a culture run more and more by money. He draws on anthropology, economics, psychology and literature to trace how gifts move between people and what the modern market does to that circulation. Usually classed as economic anthropology, it has also been read by some reviewers as metaphysics. Part of its theory of gifts first ran in CoEvolution Quarterly, and later printings carried new subtitles, including a twenty-fifth anniversary edition with a new preface and afterword.

Seth Godin put it on his winter 2024 list of books, and writer and artist Austin Kleon said it reaffirmed his own thinking about making art: that a day job lets him keep work separate from play, and that generosity toward an audience pays off for an artist both spiritually and financially.