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...
Betafo, a rural community in central Madagascar, is divided between the descendants of nobles and descendants of slaves. Anthropologist David Graeb...
This volume is the first comprehensive synthesis of economic, political, and cultural theories of value. David Graeber reexamines a century of anthropological thought about value and exchange, in large measure to find a way out of ongoing quandaries in current social theory, which have become critical at the present moment of ideological collapse in the face of Neoliberalism. Rooted in an engaged, dynamic realism, Graeber argues that projects of cultural comparison are in a sense necessarily revolutionary projects: He attempts to synthesize the best insights of Karl Marx and Marcel Mauss,...
This volume is the first comprehensive synthesis of economic, political, and cultural theories of value. David Graeber reexamines a century of anthrop...
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:...
Everywhere anarchism is on the upswing as a political philosophy - everywhere, that is, except the academy. Anarchists repeatedly appeal to anthropolo...
If anthropology consists of making the apparently wild thought of others logically compelling in their own cultural settings and intellectually revealing of the human condition, then David Graeber is the consummate anthropologist. Not only does he accomplish this profound feat, he redoubles it by the critical tasknow more urgent than everof making the possibilities of other people s worlds the basis for understanding our own. Marshall Sahlins, University of Chicago Graeber s ideas are rich and wide-ranging; he pushes us to expand the boundaries of what we admit to be possible, or...
If anthropology consists of making the apparently wild thought of others logically compelling in their own cultural settings and intellectually re...
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 yearsagainst the Summit of the Americas in Quebec 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...
Anthropologist David Graeber undertakes the first detailed ethnographic study of the global justice movement. The case study at the center of "Dire...
Now in paperback, the updated and expanded edition: David Graeber's "fresh . . . fascinating . . . thought-provoking . . . and exceedingly timely" (Financial Times) history of debt Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: he shows that before there was money, there was debt. 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,...
Now in paperback, the updated and expanded edition: David Graeber's "fresh . . . fascinating . . . thought-provoking...
Available in English for the first time, anthropologist Carlo Severi s "The Chimera Principle" breaks new theoretical ground for the study of ritual, iconographic technologies, and oral traditions among non-literate peoples. Setting himself against a tradition that has long seen the memory of people without writing which relies on such ephemeral records as ornaments, body painting, and masks as fundamentally disordered or doomed to failure, he argues strenuously that ritual actions in these societies pragmatically produce religious meaning and that they demonstrate what he calls a chimeric...
Available in English for the first time, anthropologist Carlo Severi s "The Chimera Principle" breaks new theoretical ground for the study of ritua...
From the author of the international bestseller "Debt: The First 5,000 Years" comes a revelatory account of the way bureaucracy rules our lives Where does the desire for endless rules, regulations, and bureaucracy come from? How did we come to spend so much of our time filling out forms? And is it really a cipher for state violence? To answer these questions, the anthropologist David Graeber one of our most important and provocative thinkers traces the peculiar and unexpected ways we relate to bureaucracy today, and reveals how it shapes our lives in ways we may not even notice...
From the author of the international bestseller "Debt: The First 5,000 Years" comes a revelatory account of the way bureaucracy rules our lives W...
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...
In anthropology as much as in popular imagination, kings are figures of fascination and intrigue, heroes or tyrants in ways presidents and prime minis...
This manifesto is the definitive work of Abdullah Ocalan, crucial for understanding the Kurdish revolution. Here Ocalan outlines a democratic alternative for the Middle East.
A criticism that limits itself to capitalism is too superficial, Ocalan argues, and turns his eyes to the underlying structures of civilization. Rethinking the methods of understanding culture, politics, and society, he provides the tools for what he calls a sociology of freedom.
In this work, Abdullah Ocalan distills 35 years of revolutionary theory and praxis and 10 years of solitary confinement in...
This manifesto is the definitive work of Abdullah Ocalan, crucial for understanding the Kurdish revolution. Here Ocalan outlines a democratic alternat...
