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'A characteristically radical re-reading of history that places the
social and political experiments of pirates at the heart of the
European Enlightenment. A brilliant companion volume to the
best-selling Dawn of Everything' Amitav Ghosh The Enlightenment did
not begin in Europe. Its true origins lie thousands of miles away
on the island of Madagascar, in the late seventeenth century, when
it was home to several thousand pirates. This was the Golden Age of
Piracy - but it was also, argues anthropologist David Graeber, a
brief window of radical democracy, as the pirate settlers attempted
to apply the egalitarian principles of their ships to a new society
on land. In this jewel of a book, Graeber offers a way to
'decolonize the Enlightenment', demonstrating how this mixed
community experimented with an alternative vision of human freedom,
far from that being formulated in the salons and coffee houses of
Europe. Its actors were Malagasy women, philosopher kings and
escaped slaves, exploring ideas that were ultimately to be put into
practice by Western revolutionary regimes a century later. Pirate
Enlightenment playfully dismantles the central myths of the
Enlightenment. In their place comes a story about the magic, sea
battles, purloined princesses, manhunts, make-believe kingdoms,
fraudulent ambassadors, spies, jewel thieves, poisoners and devil
worship that lie at the origins of modern freedom.
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND SUNDAY TIMES, OBSERVER AND BBC
HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR FINALIST FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR
POLITICAL WRITING 2022 'Pacey and potentially revolutionary' Sunday
Times 'Iconoclastic and irreverent ... an exhilarating read' The
Guardian For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as
primitive and childlike - either free and equal, or thuggish and
warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by
sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming
our baser instincts. David Graeber and David Wengrow show how such
theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a reaction to
indigenous critiques of European society, and why they are wrong.
In doing so, they overturn our view of human history, including the
origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery and
civilization itself. Drawing on path-breaking research in
archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes
a far more interesting place once we begin to see what's really
there. If humans did not spend 95 per cent of their evolutionary
past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they doing all
that time? If agriculture, and cities, did not mean a plunge into
hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic
organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected,
and suggest that the course of history may be less set in stone,
and more full of playful possibilities than we tend to assume. The
Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of
the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of
freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book
of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral
vision and faith in the power of direct action. 'This is not a
book. This is an intellectual feast' Nassim Nicholas Taleb 'The
most profound and exciting book I've read in thirty years' Robin D.
G. Kelley
Betafo, a rural community in central Madagascar, is divided
between the descendants of nobles and descendants of slaves.
Anthropologist David Graeber arrived for fieldwork at the height of
tensions attributed to a disastrous communal ordeal two years
earlier. As Graeber uncovers the layers of historical, social, and
cultural knowledge required to understand this event, he elaborates
a new view of power, inequality, and the political role of
narrative. Combining theoretical subtlety, a compelling narrative
line, and vividly drawn characters, Lost People is a singular
contribution to the anthropology of politics and the literature on
ethnographic writing.
Spectacular and terrifyingly true' - Owen Jones
'Thought-provoking and funny' - The Times
Be honest: if your job didn't exist, would anybody miss it? Have you ever wondered why not? Up to 40% of us secretly believe our jobs probably aren't necessary. In other words: they are bullshit jobs. This book shows why, and what we can do about it.
In the early twentieth century, people prophesied that technology would see us all working fifteen-hour weeks and driving flying cars. Instead, something curious happened. Not only have the flying cars not materialised, but average working hours have increased rather than decreased. And now, across the developed world, three-quarters of all jobs are in services, finance or admin: jobs that don't seem to contribute anything to society. In Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber explores how this phenomenon - one more associated with the Soviet Union, but which capitalism was supposed to eliminate - has happened. In doing so, he looks at how, rather than producing anything, work has become an end in itself; the way such work maintains the current broken system of finance capital; and, finally, how we can get out of it.
This book is for anyone whose heart has sunk at the sight of a whiteboard, who believes 'workshops' should only be for making things, or who just suspects that there might be a better way to run our world.
'A characteristically radical re-reading of history that places the
social and political experiments of pirates at the heart of the
European Enlightenment. A brilliant companion volume to the
best-selling Dawn of Everything' Amitav Ghosh The Enlightenment did
not begin in Europe. Its true origins lie thousands of miles away
on the island of Madagascar, in the late seventeenth century, when
it was home to several thousand pirates. This was the Golden Age of
Piracy, a period of violent buccaneering and rollicking legends -
but it was also, argues anthropologist David Graeber, a brief
window of radical democracy, as the pirate settlers attempted to
apply the egalitarian principles of their ships to a new society on
land. For Graeber, Madagascar's lost pirate utopia represents some
of the first stirrings of Enlightenment political thought. In this
jewel of a book, he offers a way to 'decolonize the Enlightenment',
demonstrating how this mixed community experimented with an
alternative vision of human freedom, far from that being formulated
in the salons and coffee houses of Europe. Its actors were Malagasy
women, merchants and traders, philosopher kings and escaped slaves,
exploring ideas that were ultimately to be put into practice by
Western revolutionary regimes a century later. Pirate Enlightenment
playfully dismantles the central myths of the Enlightenment. In
their place comes a story about the magic, sea battles, purloined
princesses, manhunts, make-believe kingdoms, fraudulent
ambassadors, spies, jewel thieves, poisoners and devil worship that
lie at the origins of modern freedom.
Since its first publication over forty years ago Marshall Sahlins's
Stone Age Economics has established itself as a classic of modern
anthropology and arguably one of the founding works of
anthropological economics. Ambitiously tackling the nature of
economic life and how to study it comparatively, Sahlins radically
revises traditional views of the hunter-gatherer and so-called
primitive societies, revealing them to be the original "affluent
society." Sahlins examines notions of production, distribution and
exchange in early communities and examines the link between
economics and cultural and social factors. A radical study of
tribal economies, domestic production for livelihood, and of the
submission of domestic production to the material and political
demands of society at large, Stone Age Economics regards the
economy as a category of culture rather than behaviour, in a class
with politics and religion rather than rationality or prudence.
Sahlins concludes, controversially, that the experiences of those
living in subsistence economies may actually have been better,
healthier and more fulfilled than the millions enjoying the
affluence and luxury afforded by the economics of modern
industrialisation and agriculture. This Routledge Classics edition
includes a new foreword by David Graeber, London School of
Economics.
Everywhere anarchism is on the upswing as a political
philosophy--everywhere, that is, except the academy. Anarchists
repeatedly appeal to anthropologists for ideas about how society
might be reorganized on a more egalitarian, less alienating basis.
Anthropologists, terrified of being accused of romanticism, respond
with silence . . . . But what if they didn't?
This pamphlet ponders what that response would be, and explores the
implications of linking anthropology to anarchism. Here, David
Graeber invites readers to imagine this discipline that currently
only exists in the realm of possibility: anarchist anthropology.
Since its first publication over forty years ago Marshall Sahlins's
Stone Age Economics has established itself as a classic of modern
anthropology and arguably one of the founding works of
anthropological economics. Ambitiously tackling the nature of
economic life and how to study it comparatively, Sahlins radically
revises traditional views of the hunter-gatherer and so-called
primitive societies, revealing them to be the original "affluent
society." Sahlins examines notions of production, distribution and
exchange in early communities and examines the link between
economics and cultural and social factors. A radical study of
tribal economies, domestic production for livelihood, and of the
submission of domestic production to the material and political
demands of society at large, Stone Age Economics regards the
economy as a category of culture rather than behaviour, in a class
with politics and religion rather than rationality or prudence.
Sahlins concludes, controversially, that the experiences of those
living in subsistence economies may actually have been better,
healthier and more fulfilled than the millions enjoying the
affluence and luxury afforded by the economics of modern
industrialisation and agriculture. This Routledge Classics edition
includes a new foreword by David Graeber, London School of
Economics.
David Graeber here applies anthropological theory to capitalism and
its opponents. His analysis uses case studies from such diverse
communities as rural Madagascans, pre-capitalist economies and
urban international protest groups to tease out the truth about the
state we're in.
From their earliest meetings, activist David Graeber knew that the
Occupy Wall Street movement was something different. From small
beginnings its demonstrations spread across the world to cities
like Cairo, Athens, Barcelona and London and gave a glimpse of a
new way. This provocative look at the actions of the 99% asks: why
was it so effective? What went right? And what can we all do now to
make our world democratic once again? Both a treatise on power and
protest and an energetic account of contemporary events, The
Democracy Project will change the way you think about politics, and
the world.
Before there was money, there was debt
Every economics textbook says the same thing: Money was invented
to replace onerous and complicated barter systems--to relieve
ancient people from having to haul their goods to market. The
problem with this version of history? There's not a shred of
evidence to support it.
Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of
conventional wisdom. He shows that for more than 5,000 years, since
the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used
elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods--that is, long
before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber
argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors
and creditors.
Graeber shows that arguments about debt and debt forgiveness have
been at the center of political debates from Italy to China, as
well as sparking innumerable insurrections. He also brilliantly
demonstrates that the language of the ancient works of law and
religion (words like "guilt," "sin," and "redemption") derive in
large part from ancient debates about debt, and shape even our most
basic ideas of right and wrong. We are still fighting these battles
today without knowing it.
"Debt: The First 5,000 Years "is a fascinating chronicle of this
little known history--as well as how it has defined human history,
and what it means for the credit crisis of the present day and the
future of our economy.
Today's capitalist systems appear to be coming apart - but what is
the alternative? In a generation or so, capitalism may no longer
exist as it's impossible to maintain perpetual growth on a finite
planet. David Graeber explores political strategy, global trade,
violence, alienation and creativity looking for a new common sense.
Anthropologist David Graeber undertakes the first detailed
ethnographic study of the global justice movement. The case study
at the center of "Direct Action" is the organizing and events that
led to the one of the most dramatic and militant mass protests in
recent years-against the Summit of the Americas in QuA(c)bec City.
Written in a clear, accessible style (with a minimum of academic
jargon), this study brings readers behind the scenes of a movement
that has changed the terms of debate about world power relations.
From informal conversations in coffee shops to large
"spokescouncil" planning meetings and tear gas-drenched street
actions, Graeber paints a vivid and fascinating picture.
Along the way, he addresses matters of deep interest to
anthropologists: meeting structure and process, language, symbolism
and representation, the specific rituals of activist culture, and
much more. Starting from the assumption that, when dealing with
possibilities of global transformation and emerging political
forms, a disinterested, "objective" perspective is impossible,
Graeber writes as both scholar and activist. At the same time, his
experiment in the application of ethnographic methods to important
ongoing political events is a serious and unique contribution to
the field of anthropology, as well as an inquiry into
anthropology's political implications.
David Graeber is an anthropologist and activist who teaches at
the University of London. Active in numerous direct-action
political organizations, he has written for "Harper's Magazine" and
is the author of "Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology," "Towards
an Anthropological Theory of Value," and "Possibilities."
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On Kings (Paperback)
Marshall Sahlins, David Graeber
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R787
Discovery Miles 7 870
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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In anthropology as much as in popular imagination, kings are
figures of fascination and intrigue, heroes or tyrants in ways
presidents and prime ministers can never be. This collection of
essays by two of the world's most distinguished
anthropologists--David Graeber and Marshall Sahlins--explores what
kingship actually is, historically and anthropologically. As they
show, kings are symbols for more than just sovereignty: indeed, the
study of kingship offers a unique window into fundamental dilemmas
concerning the very nature of power, meaning, and the human
condition. Reflecting on issues such as temporality, alterity, and
utopia--not to mention the divine, the strange, the numinous, and
the bestial--Graeber and Sahlins explore the role of kings as they
have existed around the world, from the BaKongo to the Aztec to the
Shilluk and beyond. Richly delivered with the wit and sharp
analysis characteristic of Graeber and Sahlins, this book opens up
new avenues for the anthropological study of this fascinating and
ubiquitous political figure.
David Graeber was not only one of today's most important living
thinkers, but also one of the most influential. He was also one of
the very few engaged intellectuals who has a proven track record of
effective militancy on a world scale, and his impact on the
international left cannot be overstated. Graeber has offered up
perhaps the most credible path for exiting capitalism-as much
through his writing about debt, bureaucracy, or "bullshit jobs" as
through his crucial involvement in the Occupy Wall Street movement,
which led to his more-or-less involuntary exile from the American
academy. In short, Anarchy-In a Manner of Speaking presents a
series of interviews with a first-rate intellectual, a veritable
modern hero on the order of Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Linus
Torvald, Aaron Swartz, and Elon Musk. Interviewers Mehdi Belhaj
Kacem and Assia Turquier-Zauberman asked Graeber not only about the
history of anarchy, but also about its contemporary relevance and
future. Their conversation also explores the ties between
anthropology and anarchism, and the traces of its DNA in the Occupy
Wall Street and Yellow Vest movements. Finally, Graeber discussed
the meaning of anarchist ethics-not only in the political realm,
but also in terms of art, love, sexuality, and more. With
astonishing humor, verve, and erudition, this book redefines the
contours of what could be (in the words of Peter Kropotkin)
"anarchist morality" today.
The 20 essays in this book cover a broad range: embedded
intellectuals in increasingly corporatised universities, research
projects in which factory workers and academics work side by side,
revolutionary ethnographies of the Global Justice Movement, and
meditations on technology from the branches of a Scottish tree-sit.
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