| Audun and the Polar Bear: Luck, Law, and Largesse in a Medieval Tale of Risky Business Contributor(s): Miller, William I. (Author) |
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ISBN: 9004271937 ISBN-13: 9789004271937 Publisher: Brill OUR PRICE: $38.95 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: July 2008 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | Europe - Medieval - Literary Criticism | European - German - Law | Legal History |
| Dewey: 839.63 |
| Series: Medieval Law and Its Practice |
| Physical Information: 0.3" H x 6.1" W x 9.3" (0.61 lbs) 168 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - Medieval (500-1453) |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Audun's Story is the tale of an Icelandic farmhand who buys a polar bear in Greenland for no other reason than to give it to the Danish king, half a world away. It can justly be listed among the finest pieces of short fiction in world literature. Terse in the best saga style, it spins a story of complex competitive social action, revealing the cool wit and finely-calibrated reticence of its three main characters: Audun, Harald Hardradi, and King Svein. The tale should have much to engage legal and cultural historians, anthropologists, economists, philosophers, and students of literature. The story's treatment of gift-exchange is worthy of the fine anthropological and historical writing on gift-exchange; its treatment of face-to-face interaction a match for Erving Goffman. |