The Gift Of Thanks
The Roots, Persistence, and Paradoxical Meanings of a Social Ritual
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
In The Gift of Thanks, Margaret Visser continues her exploration of the cultural implications of common objects and ordinary behaviour. The simple habit of saying “thank you,” and indeed the entire notion of gratitude itself, becomes a key to understanding many of the basic assumptions, preferences and needs underlying Western culture. Taking into consideration cultural history; questions of politics and rights; questions of ideas of freedom and equality; and questions of the newly awakened scientific interest in the emotions, Visser specifically addresses the questions: What does “gratitude” actually mean? Where did the notion come from (many languages have no specific word for it)? What is its history? And why is our society so invested in its operations? Like all of Visser’s celebrated work, The Gift of Thanks is a fascinating look at our everyday behaviour—from tipping a waiter after a meal to wrapping a present for a friend.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Like a modern Ruth Benedict immersed in classical literature, Visser (Much Depends on Dinner) examines what it really means, in the course of human interaction, to be thankful. Her kindly book turns on itself in an exhaustive but continually engrossing fashion. Beginning with the assumption that "ratitude must be freely given; otherwise, it might be a polite show, but it is not gratitude," Visser asks many questions of cultures East and West and provides a plethora of answers. The obscured and deeper meaning of giving thanks is probed through such divergent cultural markers as the work of Georg Simmel and Dickens; the Bible and Proust; Japanese sumimasen, which is both a thanking and an apologizing, and C.C. Baxter in Bill Wilder's The Apartment; Plato's Laws and Seneca's massive treatise on gift giving and the slipperiness of saying "you're welcome" in today's U.K. What is tipping all about? What is the etymological relationship between "votive," "vow," "favors," "grace" and "gratitude"? What might the gestures of courtesy the curtsy for example be? Overall, this is a delightful and graceful gift of a book, for which any fortunate recipient will be thankful.
