For a More Careful Reading

Suffice it to say, prefacing Marcel Mauss's Essai sur le don is an arduous, if not impossible, task. What further contribution can be made in the wake of a succession of commentators that begins with Claude Lévi-Strauss? This potlatch of ‘ homo sorbonnais ’, to use one of Mauss's expressions (1974: 161–168), has produced readings of this text that, as a result of theoretical and ideological rivalries, have often become irreconcilable. Innovative and courageous for some, unfounded and particularly risky for others: conflicts over the interpretation of this classic of ethnological literature continue to rage.