A.F. Robertson, who teaches in the Department of Anthropology at UCSB, will discuss his new book, Greed: Gut Feelings, Growth, and History (Polity Press, 2001) at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, January 30 in the McCune Conference Room, 6020 Humanities and Social Sciences Building.  Courtesy of the UCSB Bookstore, copies of Greed will be available for purchase and signing at this free, public event. 

Reviews

'Robertson's subject is the human catastrophe of a modern society built on separation and division, especially of the mind and the body. His method is to use a focus on greed as a means of conceptually reuniting meaning and feeling. Greed is in turn linked to the reality and metaphor of growth on which so much in modern society depends. This is not just imaginative; it is unique.' - - Keith Hart, King's College, Aberdeen

'Robertson daringly goes to the heart of the private and collective body in search of the dark forces of social and ecological destruction. This is no ordinary work, but an ambitious reach across discourses and vast time spans. He challenges us to think in fundamental ways about "growth", and how the very concept once misapplied leads to malignant outcomes.' - - Harvey Molotch, New York University

Description: 

'Greed' is a visceral insult. It jabs below the belt, evoking guilty sensations of gluttony and lust. It taunts the rich and powerful, penetrating the cover of modern ideologies and institutions. Today, old-fashioned accusations of greed drag the larger-than-life corporate fat cats down to human bodily proportions, accusing them of gain without genuine growth. This lively new book is a wide-ranging inquiry into how greed works in our lives and in the world at large. Western philosophy has intellectualized human passions, explaining and justifying our expansive desires as 'rational self-interest'. However, an examination of the visceral power of greed tells us something about the apathy of modern theory. It shows us how confused we have become about the meanings of growth, creating false and morally hazardous distinctions between biology on the one hand, and history on the other. With greed as a guide, this book considers how the integrity of these meanings may be restored. This remarkable book will be of interest to anyone concerned about the morality of economic behavior in the modern world. It will be an important text for students in the social sciences, especially in anthropology, sociology, development studies, and business studies.

Author:

A. F. Robertson is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  His publications include of Dependence and Opportunity: Political Change in Ahafo  (with John Dunn); Community of Strangers: A Journal of Discovery in Uganda; Uganda's First Republic: Chiefs, Administrators and Politicians, 1967-71; People and the  State: An Anthropology of Planned Development; The Dynamics of Productive Relationships: African Share Contracts in Comparative Perspective; Beyond the Marketplace: Rethinking Economy and Society (with Roger Friedland); Beyond the Family: The Social Organization of Human Reproduction Polity Press; The Big Catch: A Practical Introduction to Development.

This event is sponsored by the UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities Center and cosponsored by the UCSB Bookstore.