Gifts

Professor Hyland has written a work of massive but accessible comparative scholarship dealing with a problem that engages the attention of every legal system: how the law does and should regard gifts-with what mixture of permission, encouragement, and regulation. After setting the stage by reviewing the variety of social scientific treatments of the social meaning and significance of the gift, and explaining the utility and limitations of comparative studies, Hyland conducts a detailed, fascinating comparison of the approaches taken by the Western legal traditions. The book will be an indispensable resource for students of the gift, and of comparative law in general.
--Richard A. Posner,
Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
Senior Lecturer, University of Chicago Law School

Hyland's exploration of why the legal mind so often concludes that gift giving is a danger to society is a work of scholarly comparison the likes of which we have not seen since Mauss's classic text. The book changes the terms of debate about the gift and is a must for anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers and historians and other scholars interested in the burgeoning multi-disciplinary literature on the gift.
--Chris Gregory,
Professor of Political and Economic Anthropology, University of Manchester

This book is masterful! The doctrinal material is extremely significant, consistently interesting, and exceptionally well done. The scholarly effort and intellect that went into this book are both obvious and staggering.
--Melvin A. Eisenberg,
Koret Professor of Law, Boalt Hall Law School, University of California, Berkeley

Richard Hyland's Gifts is a 'gift' to comparative law. Miraculously, this learned exposition of the law surrounding the practice of gifts is a page-turner. Going far back in time and widely across the world's legal systems, Prof. Hyland has produced a masterpiece, showing how the