Giving gifts for its merits and expression in the different periods can create friendship and closeness, or alternatively lead to quarrels and discord. The gift is sometimes a voluntary action and sometimes fulfilling an obligation. Some of it is in terms of giving a bribe and some of it is an expression of gratitude. Many times, it paves the way for social advancement or political engagement. The giving of the gifts was accompanied by significant etiquette and created special patterns. How can we differentiate between a gift and a bribe? What is the place of gifts in alliances and conflicts in society and in the family? How do they affect economic relations, politics and religion? These questions are important for understanding past and present social relations, and they are at the heart of this book. The Gift in Sixteenth-Century France offers a new way of understanding the subject of gifts, which took a permanent place in social relations throughout the various periods. The book examines the ways and meanings of gift exchange in French society in the sixteenth century, from the generosity of kings to the beggar's contribution. This fascinating book proves that examining the meaning of gifts can help us understand not only the social relationships in the past but also how to behave pleasantly with others nowadays.

"History, Rhetoric, Proof... the idea that historians need or can prove something is, in the eyes of many, an idea that has lost its necessity, and is perhaps even downright ridiculous. However, even those who feel uncomfortable in the face of the prevailing intellectual atmosphere, almost always believe that rhetoric and proof are not consistent. I, on the other hand, wish to show, first, that proof was considered an inseparable part of rhetoric in the past. Second, that this fact, which was self-evident in the past, and has been forgotten in the meantime, alludes to an image of the working methods of historians, including contemporary historians, which is much more realistic and complex than that reflected in contemporary fashion." With these words, Carlo Ginzburg, one of the most innovative historians of our generation, opens his fascinating essay on the relationship between rhetoric and history. While looking originally at a wide variety of texts belonging to different periods, cultures and types, Ginzburg seeks to show that rhetoric, if the compromise is understood correctly, concerns not only the style of the historian, but a garden for his pursuit of proof and historical truth.

The Nation in History describes the main historiographical controversies about the place of the nation in history, and presents in greater detail the advantages of the ethnic-symbolic approach, of which Smith is one of the prominent representatives. For thirty years and more, Anthony Smith has been considered one of the central theorists in the study of nationalism. One by one, he published an impressive series of books that are considered landmarks in understanding the phenomenon of nations and ethnicities. His research work excels both in conceptual sharpness and theoretical sophistication as well as in extensive historical knowledge and understanding. His writing is characterized by a consistent search for the connection between pre-modern ethnicity and the nationalism that came after it, and a tireless pursuit of a unifying theory or an agreed-upon paradigm that would encompass most of the problems and issues included in nationalism. In his book The Nation in History , some of his guiding ideas on these topics matured and reached the point of formation.