The Culture of the Gift in Eighteenth-Century England analyzes the long overlooked role of gift exchange in literary texts and cultural documents and provides innovative readings of how gift transactions shaped the institutions and practices that gave this era its distinctive identity.

Leaders make profound contributions to the world by creating environments where people thrive so they can be the best that they can be. This can only happen in businesses with a culture of excellence. Over time, the ripple effect of culture-conscious leadership extends beyond the walls of the workplace culture and into the lives, families, and communities of all the employees, customers, and vendors. Despite the measurable returns on culture, however, many leaders don't necessarily know how to create a great culture. Until now. Culture is our business. Following the success of The Culture FixTM, Will Scott offers this fabled version that works through the step-by-step process of Culture FulfillmentTM. In this story, Andy, our business coach and Actuator, goes into troubled Everco and transforms the company's organizational performance, fortunes, and employee happiness. In just months, through a complete renovation, Everco's culture is brought alive, made to thrive, and used to drive performanceTM.

Starting with the premise that the work of art is a gift and not a commodity, this revolutionary book ranges across anthropology, literature, economics, and psychology to show how the 'commerce of the creative spirit' functions in the lives of artists and in culture as a whole.

In the midst of Occupy, Barbara Andersen begins spamming people indiscriminately with ukulele covers of sentimental songs. A series of inappropriate intimacies ensued, including an erotically charged correspondence and then collaboration with an extraordinarily gifted and troubled musician living in Germany.

The Caucasus region of Eurasia, wedged in between the Black and Caspian Seas, encompasses the modern territories of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, as well as the troubled republic of Chechnya in southern Russia. A site of invasion, conquest, and resistance since the onset of historical record, it has earned a reputation for fearsome violence and isolated mountain redoubts closed to outsiders. Over extended efforts to control the Caucasus area, Russians have long mythologized stories of their countrymen taken captive by bands of mountain brigands.In The Captive and the Gift, the anthropologist Bruce Grant explores the long relationship between Russia and the Caucasus and the means by which sovereignty has been exercised in this contested area. Taking his lead from Aleksandr Pushkin's 1822 poem "Prisoner of the Caucasus," Grant explores the extraordinary resonances of the themes of violence, captivity, and empire in the Caucasus through mythology, poetry, short stories, ballet, opera, and film. Grant argues that while the recurring Russian captivity narrative reflected a wide range of political positions, it most often and compellingly suggested a vision of Caucasus peoples as thankless, lawless subjects of empire who were unwilling to acknowledge and accept the gifts of civilization and protection extended by Russian leaders.Drawing on years of field and archival research, Grant moves beyond myth and mass culture to suggest how real-life Caucasus practices of exchange, by contrast, aimed to control and diminish rather than unleash and increase violence. The result is a historical anthropology of sovereign forms that underscores how enduring popular narratives and close readings of ritual practices can shed light on the management of pluralism in long-fraught world areas.

Bill Hess -a noted photographer - began his association with the Inupiat Eskimos in 1982. Eventually, he got permission to accompany them on their historic whale hunt. This book is his record, in sensitive text and almost 200 stark images, of what he experienced. Hess explores Inupiat history and traditions juxtaposed against contemporary life, never shying away from the controversial aspects of this ancient trek. Gift of the Whale is a rare contribution to Native history.

In this fascinating book, author and leadership coach, Renée Giarrusso teaches us how to view challenging situations and people as 'gifts'; each is valuable for the lessons it teaches us. With the right mindset we can learn to embrace them and apply the lessons they present in our personal and professional lives. Most of us experience challenges, crises, sadness and triumphs and success at some point over the years. Life throws us curve-balls. Some are made of glass and hard to catch, some bounce off us and others seem to fall straight into our hands. The author calls these 'gifts'. How we catch (or drop) these gifts depends on our mindset, perspective, beliefs, experiences, values and so many other things. In this thought-provoking book, Renée teaches us how to adopt the Gift Mindset to learn from these life experiences and appreciate them as gifts.