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WARDLE, HUON. An ethnography of cosmopolitanism in Kingston, Jamaica, xix 229 pp., fig., illus., bibliogr. Lewiston, N.Y: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000. $89.95 (cloth) Each ethnographic region seems to have a [...]

MACNAGHTEN, PHIL & JOHN URRY. Contested natures. ix, 307 pp., illus., bibliogr. London: Sage, 1998. £49.50 (cloth), £15.99 (paper) Environmentalism may well be the reigning civil concern of the close [...]

The idea of moral economy has been increasingly popular in the social sciences over the past decade, given a confusing variety of meanings and sometimes invoked as an empty symbol. This paper begins by describing this state of affairs and some of its undesirable corollaries, which include unthinking invocations of the moral and simplistic views of some sorts of economic activity. Then, referring especially to the work of EP Thompson and James C Scott, this paper proposes a more precise definition of moral economy that roots moral economic activity in the mutual obligations that arise when people transact with each other over the course of time. It thus distinguishes between the moral values that are the context of economic activity and those that arise from the activity itself. The solution that the paper proposes to the confused state of ‘moral economy’ can, therefore, be seen as terminological, as the sub-title suggests, but it is intended to have the substantive benefits of a better approach to economic activity and circulation and a more explicit and thoughtful attention to moral value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ROBOTHAM, DON. Culture, society and economy: bringing production back in. 189 pp., table, bibliogr. London: Sage Publications, 2005. £60 (cloth), £19.99 (paper) About a quarter-century ago anthropologists decided to reject [...]

VIVANCO, LUIS A. Green encounters: shaping and contesting environmentalism in rural Costa Rica. xv, 222 pp., maps, illus., bibliogr. Oxford, New York: Berghahn Books, 2006. £45.00 (cloth), £17.95 (paper) If [...]

WILK, RICHARD. Home cooking in the global village: Caribbean food from buccaneers to ecotourists. x, 286 pp., map, fig, tables, illus., bibliogr. Oxford, New York: Berg Publishers, 2006. £55.00 (cloth), [...]

BROWNE, KATHERINE E. Creole economics: Caribbean cunning under the French flag. xvii, 271 pp., maps, illus., bibliogr. Austin: Univ. Texas Press, 2004. $55.00 (cloth), $22.95 (paper) Anthropological work on the [...]

PRYOR, FREDERIC L. Economic systems of foraging, agricultural, and industrial societies. xvi, 316 pp., tables, figs, bibliogr. Cambridge: Univ. Press, 2005. £40.00 (cloth), £17.99 (paper) Both anthropology and economics study [...]

EDELMAN, MARC & ANGELIQUE HAUGERUD (eds). The anthropology of development and globalization: from classical political economy to contemporary neoliberalism. x, 406 pp., bibliogrs. Oxford, Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. £65.00 [...]

SMITH, JENNIE M. When the hands are many: community organization and social change in rural Haiti. xii, 229 pp., illus., bibliogr. London, Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. 2001 When the hands [...]

KOROM, FRANK J. Hosay Trinidad: Muharram performances in an Indo-Caribbean diaspora. viii, 305 pp., illus., bibliogr. Philadelphia: Univ. Pennsylvania Press, 2003. £44.00 (cloth). £17.50 (paper) Hosay Trinidad will interest those [...]

Social anthropology GINSBURG, FAYE D., LILA ABU-LUGHOD & BRIAN LARKIN (eds). Media worlds: anthropology on new terrain. xvi, 413 pp., illus., bibliogrs. London, Berkeley: Univ. California Press, 2002. £40.00 (cloth), [...]

Religion PALMIE, STEPHAN. Wizards and scientists: explorations in Afro-Cuban modernity and tradition. xi, 399 pp., bibliogr. London, Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press, 2002. £16.95 (paper) Palmie has written an intriguing [...]

456 pp., maps, plates, illus., bibliogrs. London, Chicago: Univ. Press, 2002. 42.00 £(cloth), 17.50 £ (paper) Anthropology has a public face. At times this is the agreeable one celebrated in [...]

GRAEBER, DAVID. Toward an anthropological theory of value: the false coin of our own dreams. xiii, 337 pp., bibliogr. New York: Palgrave, 2001. £15.99 (paper) 'Value' is a complex concept [...]

BENJAMIN, ALAN F. Jews of the Dutch Caribbean: exploring ethnic identity on Curacao. xii, 200 pp., maps, tables, illus., bibliogr. London, New York: Routledge, 2002 £50.00 (cloth) Ethnic identity is [...]

MUNASINGHE, VIRANJINI. Callaloo or tossed salad? East Indians and the cultural politics of identity in Trinidad. xv, 315 pp., maps, bibliogr. New York: Cornell Univ. Press, 2001. £30.50 (cloth), £13.50 [...]

MYERS, FRED R. (ed.). The empire of things: regimes of value and material culture. ix, 353 pp., figs., illus., bibliogr. Oxford: James Currey; Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, [...]

ZERNER, CHARLES (ed.). People, plants, and justice: the politics of nature conservation. xvii, 449 pp., maps, tables, illus., bibliogr. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2000. $49.50 (cloth), $30.00 (paper) 'Environmental [...]

GODBOUT, JACQUES T. & ALAIN CAILLE, The world of the gift. xvi, 250 pp., bibliogr. London, Montreal: McGill-Queen's Univ. Press, 2001. £21.50 (cloth), £16.95 (paper) In the past few years [...]

DOMINY, MICHELE D. Calling the station home: place and identity in New Zealand's high country. xiii, 306 pp., maps, tables, illus., bibliogr. Oxford, New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001. $69.00 [...]