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.

The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property

Hyde, Lewis

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“A manifesto of sorts for anyone who makes art [and] cares for it.” —Zadie Smith “The best book I know of for talented but unacknowledged creators. . . . A masterpiece.” —Margaret Atwood “No one who is invested in any kind of art . . . can read The Gift and remain unchanged.” —David Foster Wallace By now a modern classic, The Gift is a brilliantly orchestrated defense of the value of creativity and of its importance in a culture increasingly governed by money and overrun with commodities. This book is even more necessary today than when it first appeared. An illuminating and transformative book, and completely original in its view of the world, The Gift is cherished by artists, writers, musicians, and thinkers. It is in itself a gift to all who discover the classic wisdom found in its pages.

The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Vintage

Common as Air offers a stirring defense of our cultural commons, that vast store of art and ideas we have inherited from the past that continues to enrich our present. Suspicious of the current idea that all creative work is “intellectual property,” Lewis Hyde turns to America’s founding fathers—men like John Adams, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson—in search of other ways to value the fruits of human wit and imagination. What he discovers is a rich tradition in which knowledge was assumed to be a commonwealth, not a private preserve.
For the founding fathers, democratic self-governance itself demanded open and easy access to ideas. So did the growth of creative communities, such as that of eighteenth-century science. And so did the flourishing of public persons, the very actors whose “civic virtue” brought the nation into being.
In this lively, carefully argued, and well-documented book, Hyde brings the past to bear on present matters, shedding fresh light on everything from the Human Genome Project to Bob Dylan’s musical roots. Common as Air allows us to stand on the shoulders of America’s revolutionary giants and to see beyond today’s narrow debates over cultural ownership. What it reveals is nothing less than an inspiring vision of how to reclaim the commonwealth of art and ideas that we were meant to inherit.

Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership

History

Historical Study & Educational Resources

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

“One of our true superstars of nonfiction” (David Foster Wallace), Lewis Hyde offers a playful and inspiring defense of forgetfulness by exploring the healing effect it can have on the human psyche. 
We live in a culture that prizes memory―how much we can store, the quality of what’s preserved, how we might better document and retain the moments of our life while fighting off the nightmare of losing all that we have experienced. But what if forgetfulness were seen not as something to fear―be it in the form of illness or simple absentmindedness―but rather as a blessing, a balm, a path to peace and rebirth? 
A Primer for Forgetting is a remarkable experiment in scholarship, autobiography, and social criticism by the author of the classics The Gift and Trickster Makes This World. It forges a new vision of forgetfulness by assembling fragments of art and writing from the ancient world to the modern, weighing the potential boons forgetfulness might offer the present moment as a creative and political force. It also turns inward, using the author’s own life and memory as a canvas upon which to extol the virtues of a concept too long taken as an evil. 
Drawing material from Hesiod to Jorge Luis Borges to Elizabeth Bishop to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, from myths and legends to very real and recent traumas both personal and historical, A Primer for Forgetting is a unique and remarkable synthesis that only Lewis Hyde could have produced.

A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past

Literature & Fiction

Examines the purpose of the trickster figures--mischievous, cultural deviations who also become heroes--in mythology and the role they play as part of the human imagination. Tour.

Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth and Art

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Farrar. Straus & Giroux

In Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde brings to life the playful and disruptive side of human imagination as it is embodied in trickster mythology. He first visits the old stories―Hermes in Greece, Eshu in West Africa, Krishna in India, Coyote in North America, among others―and then holds them up against the lives and work of more recent creators: Picasso, Duchamp, Ginsberg, John Cage, and Frederick Douglass. Twelve years after its first publication, Trickster Makes This World―authoritative in its scholarship, loose-limbed in its style―has taken its place among the great works of modern cultural criticism. 
This new edition includes an introduction by Michael Chabon.

Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art

Common as Air offers a stirring defense of our cultural commons, that vast store of art and ideas we have inherited from the past and continue to enrich in the present. Suspicious of the current idea that all creative work is "intellectual property," Lewis Hyde turns to America's Founding Fathers―men such as Adams, Madison, and Jefferson―in search of other ways to imagine the fruits of human wit and imagination. What he discovers is a rich tradition in which knowledge was assumed to be a commonwealth, not a private preserve.
For the founders, democratic self-governance itself demanded open and easy access to ideas. So did the growth of creative communities such as that of eighteenth-century science. And so did the flourishing of public persons, the very actors whose "civic virtue" brought the nation into being.
In this lively, carefully argued, and well-documented book, Hyde brings the past to bear on present matters, shedding fresh light on everything from the Human Genome Project to Bob Dylan's musical roots. Common as Air allows us to stand on the shoulders of America's revolutionary giants and thus to see beyond today's narrow debates over cultural ownership. What it reveals is nothing less than a vision of how to reclaim the commonwealth of art and ideas that we were meant to inherit.

COMMON AS AIR

FSG Adult

Examines the purpose of the trickster figures--mischievous, cultural deviations who also become heroes--in mythology and the role they play as part of the human imagination. Tour.

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.

The gift: Imagination and the erotic life of property

Anthropology

Random House]

Discusses the argument that a work of art is essentially a gift and not a commodity.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hyde, Lewis. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Hyde, Lewis

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hyde, Lewis. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property

The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World

Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership

A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past

Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth and Art

Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art

COMMON AS AIR

Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth and Art

The gift: Imagination and the erotic life of property

The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property