Over the past two thousand years, Western legal systems have had to alter some of their most basic principles in order to regulate the giving of gifts. This is a study of how legal concepts from the marketplace have been reshaped to accommodate a fundamentally different type of social practice. Richard Hyland examines the law of gifts in England, India, and the United States, and in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Giftsalso surveys the extensive discussion about gift giving in anthropology, history, economics, philosophy, and sociology. In addition, Hyland offers a critique of the functionalist method in comparative law and demonstrates the benefits of an interpretive approach.