The Purchase of Intimacy

(Paperback)

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Description

In their personal lives, people consider it essential to separate economics and intimacy. Challenging this view, this book shows how we use economic activity to create, maintain, and renegotiate important ties, especially intimate ties, to others, thus opening a window on the inner workings of the economic processes that pervade our private lives.

Reviews

"Are sociologists today the best economic scientists On the evidence of Viviana Zelizer's striking book on the mix of the sacred and profane in our lives, it seems so."--Deirdre McCloskey, The Times Higher Education Supplement "Zelizer's book does an excellent job in demystifying the intertwining of economic activity and intimacy."--Xiaoshuo Hou, Theory and Society "The theoretical importance of this book cannot be overstated, and it cannot fail to have a lasting impact on our understanding of a variety of intimate relationships, of the circulation of money, of care, of interest, and mostly of their inextricable intertwining... [T]his book is a major contribution to sociology and ... it provides a very significant challenge to the dichotomies on which sociology rests. The tight elegance of its prose and style will make it a joy to the undergraduate student, while the scope, ambition, and originality of its argument will make it indispensable to scholars."--Eva Illouz, American Journal of Sociology "Zelizer offers a perspective that focuses attention on incomplete commensurability, an essential task where markets and supposedly non market realms intersect. In doing so, Zelizer's approach gives judges, academics, lawyers, and lay people a vantage point on markets and intimacy that reflects how people actually live their lives."--Martha M. Ertman, Law & Social Inquiry

Author Bio

Viviana A. Zelizer is Lloyd Cotsen '50 Professor of Sociology at Princeton University. Her previous books include "The Social Meaning of Money" and "Pricing the Priceless Child" (both Princeton) and "Morals and Markets".