Most Popular Books by David GRAEBER

From David Graeber, the bestselling author of The Dawn of Everything and Debt—“a master of opening up thought and stimulating debate” (Slate)—a powerful argument against the rise of meaningless, unfulfilling jobs…and their consequences. Does your job make a meaningful contribution to the world? In the spring of 2013, David Graeber asked this question in a playful, provocative essay titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs.” It went viral. After one million online views in seventeen different languages, people all over the world are still debating the answer. There are hordes of people—HR consultants, communication coordinators, telemarketing researchers, corporate lawyers—whose jobs are useless, and, tragically, they know it. These people are caught in bullshit jobs. Graeber explores one of society’s most vexing and deeply felt concerns, indicting among other villains a particular strain of finance capitalism that betrays ideals shared by thinkers ranging from Keynes to Lincoln. “Clever and charismatic” (The New Yorker), Bullshit Jobs gives individuals, corporations, and societies permission to undergo a shift in values, placing creative and caring work at the center of our culture. This book is for everyone who wants to turn their vocation back into an avocation and “a thought-provoking examination of our working lives” (Financial Times).

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, 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.

A radical anthropologist studies the global justice movement.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution—from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequality—and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation. For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike—either free and equal innocents, 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 conservative reaction to powerful critiques of European society posed by Indigenous observers and intellectuals. Revisiting this encounter has startling implications for how we make sense of human history today, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself. Drawing on pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive what’s really there. If humans did not spend 95 percent 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 human history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful, hopeful 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 a faith in the power of direct action. Includes Black-and-White Illustrations

Explores the idea of democracy, its current state of crisis, and its potential as a tool for change, sharing historical perspectives on the effectiveness of democratic uprisings in various times and cultures.

An epic account of the power of memory in Madagascar.

This innovative book 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 quandaries in current social theory that have become critical at a time of ideological collapse in the face of Neoliberalism. Rooted in an engaged, dynamic realism, Graeber argues that projects of cultural comparison are necessarily revolutionary projects: He attempts to synthesize the best insights of Karl Marx and Marcel Mauss, who represent two extreme, but ultimately complementary, possibilities in the shape such a project might take. Graeber breathes new life into the classic anthropological texts on exchange, value, and economy. He rethinks the cases of Iroquois wampum, Pacific kula exchanges, and the Kwakiutl potlatch within the flow of world historical process, and recasts value as a model of human meaning-making that far exceeds rationalist/reductive economist paradigms.

An anthropologist investigates the revolution of everyday life.

Drawn from more than two decades of pathbreaking writing, the iconic and bestselling David Graeber''s most important essays and interviews. "The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently," wrote David Graeber. A renowned anthropologist, activist, and author of such classic books as Debt and the breakout New York Times bestseller The Dawn of Everything (with David Wengrow), Graeber was as well-known for his sharp, lively essays as he was for his iconic role in the Occupy movement and his paradigm-shifting tomes. There are converging political, economic, and ecological crises, and yet our politics is dominated by either business as usual or nostalgia for a mythical past. Thinking against the grain, Graeber was one of the few who dared to imagine a new understanding of the past and a liberatory vision of the future—to imagine a social order based on humans’ fundamental freedom. In essays published over three decades and ranging across the biggest issues of our time— inequality, technology, the identity of “the West,” democracy, art, power, anger, mutual aid, and protest—he challenges the old assumptions about political life. A trenchant critic of the order of things, and driven by a bold imagination and a passionate commitment to human freedom, he offers hope that our world can be different. During a moment of daunting upheaval and pervasive despair, the incisive, entertaining, and urgent essays collected in The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World . . . , edited and with an introduction by Nika Dubrovsky and with a foreword by Rebecca Solnit, make for essential and inspiring reading. They are a profound reminder of Graeber’s enduring significance as an iconic, playful, necessary thinker.

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…though he also suggests that there may be something perversely appealing—even romantic—about bureaucracy. Leaping from the ascendance of right-wing economics to the hidden meanings behind Sherlock Holmes and Batman, The Utopia of Rules is at once a powerful work of social theory in the tradition of Foucault and Marx, and an entertaining reckoning with popular culture that calls to mind Slavoj Zizek at his most accessible. An essential book for our times, The Utopia of Rules is sure to start a million conversations about the institutions that rule over us—and the better, freer world we should, perhaps, begin to imagine for ourselves.

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.

One of The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2023 The final book from David Graeber, the iconic intellectual, activist, and co-author of the New York Times bestseller, The Dawn of Everything. Pirates have long lived in the realm of romance and fantasy, symbolizing risk, lawlessness, and radical visions of freedom. But at the root of this mythology is a rich history of pirate societies— vibrant, imaginative experiments in self-governance and alternative social formations at the edges of European empire. In graduate school, David Graeber conducted ethnographic field research in Madagascar, producing what would eventually become a doctoral thesis on the island’s magic, slavery, and politics. During this time, he encountered the Zana-Malata, an ethnic group made up of mixed descendants of the many pirates who settled on the island at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Pirate Enlightenment, or the True Libertalia, Graeber''s final posthumous book, is the outgrowth of this early research, written while he and David Wengrow were working on what would become their major bestseller, The Dawn of Everything. In direct conversation with that work, Graeber explores how the proto-democratic, even libertarian practices of the Zana-Malata came to shape the Enlightenment project defined for too long as distinctly European. The result is a short but sweeping exploration of the non-European origins of what we consider to be “Western” thought, and an endeavor to recover forgotten forms of social and political order that gesture toward new, hopeful possibilities for the future.

In this work, David Graeber explores the implications of linking anthropology to anarchism.

Occupy Wall Street Mit diesem Aufruf besetzt im September 2011 eine Gruppe von Aktivisten den Zuccotti-Park im New Yorker Finanzdistrikt. Sie wollen friedlich gegen die Finanzmnrkte und Banken, die ungerechte Verteilung der VermAgen sowie die Untntigkeit der Politik demonstrieren. Was steckt hinter dieser Bewegung, die in kurzer Zeit Millionen Menschen rund um den Globus mobilisiert? Was steckt hinter den Guy-Fawkes-Masken der Besetzer? Was steckt hinter ihrem Mut und ihrem Zorn? Der Vordenker und Aktivist David Graeber berichtet aus erster Hand, wie alles begann, wie die Bewegung stark werden konnte und warum dies erst der Anfang ist.aBiographische InformationenDavid Graeber, Jahrgang 1961, ist amerikanischer Anarchist und Kulturanthropologe sowie Mitglied der Gewerkschaft Industrial Workers of the World. Bis Juni 2007 war er auerdem Professor fr Ethnologie an der Yale University. Er ist Autor zahlreicher Bcher, darunter Frei von Herrschaft1/2 sowie Schulden1/2."

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.

Occupy Wall Street! Mit diesem Aufruf besetzt im September 2011 eine Gruppe von Aktivisten den Zuccotti-Park im New Yorker Finanzdistrikt. Sie wollen friedlich gegen die Finanzmärkte und Banken, die ungerechte Verteilung der Vermögen sowie die Untätigkeit der Politik demonstrieren. Was steckt hinter dieser Bewegung, die in kurzer Zeit Millionen Menschen rund um den Globus mobilisiert? Was steckt hinter den Guy-Fawkes-Masken der Besetzer? Was steckt hinter ihrem Mut und ihrem Zorn? Der Vordenker und Aktivist David Graeber berichtet aus erster Hand, wie alles begann, wie die Bewegung stark werden konnte und warum dies erst der Anfang ist.

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.

Full of playful graphics, provocative questions, and curious facts, this book asks what makes a city and how we might make them differently. What makes a city a city? Who says? Drafted over decades out of a dialogue between artist and author Nika Dubrovsky, the late anthropologist David Graeber, and Nika’s then four-year-old son, this delightful and provocative book Cities Made Differently opens a space for invention and collaboration. Fusing anthropology, literature, play, and drawing, the book is essentially a visual essay that asks us to reconsider our ideas about cities and the people who inhabit them. Drawing us into a world of history and myth, science and imagination, Graeber and Dubrovsky invite us to rethink the worlds we inhabit—because we can, and nothing is too strange or too wonderful to be true. With inspired pictures and prompts, Cities Made Differently asks what a city is, or could be, or once was. Sleeping at the bottom of the ocean? Buried in lava? What were those cities of long ago, and what will the cities of the future be? They might be virtual, ruled by AI, or islands of beautiful architecture afloat in seas of greenery. They might be utopian places of refuge or refugee camps as far as the eye can see. On land, underground or aloft, excavated or imagined, cities, this book tells us in provocative and funny ways, can be anything we want them to be—and what we want them to be can tell us something about who we are, what it is to be human, and what’s possible when we make way for wonder. Cities Made Differently exists in two versions, one for reading and thinking, the other, downloadable at a4kids.org, for drawing and dreaming.

In recent and ongoing uprisings all around the world, from Santiago to Hong Kong, many of the protesters'' aims have been consistent: justice, an end to political corruption, and a return to principles of collective good. Yet there are also specific and diverse struggles such as demands for direct democracy (as in France), the rejection of ethnic or sectarian identities (Iraq and Lebanon), and the fate of the planet itself. Uprisings provides one way to find a common thread in all this by examining the similarities and differences among a full range of rebellions in the past, from slave revolts in ancient Egypt to the fall of the Berlin Wall to the the women''s revolution in Rojava, northern Syria. Whereas existing narratives of radical social change have debated the virtues and vices of individual heroes (Jesus, Mandela, Gandhi), Uprisings follows in the footsteps of Howard Zinn, viewing major events as the product of a confluence of efforts by multiple actors, usually from vastly different backgrounds that have tended to be marginalized, their perspectives written out of official history.

Neste best-seller internacional, o autor do celebrado O despertar de tudo mostra que a sociedade sempre foi separada em devedores e credores, e que a dívida e o perdão estiveram no centro do debate político bem antes de o dinheiro existir. Com prefácio inédito de Thomas Piketty. Esqueça o que você pensa que sabe sobre dinheiro, dívida e sociedade. Um dos pensadores mais originais deste século, David Graeber combina antropologia, história, economia e um espírito abertamente anarquista para provar que nossas ideias sobre dinheiro são limitadas, se não até mesmo equivocadas. Revertendo o senso comum de maneira brilhante, o autor apresenta uma história da civilização humana pelo viés do desenvolvimento das relações econômicas e da formação do espírito capitalista, com sua voracidade sem limites e seu rastro de destruição. Obra essencial para entendermos o desenvolvimento da sociedade e do capitalismo, Dívida é um marco. "Escrito em um estilo impetuoso e envolvente, o livro também é uma investigação filosófica sobre a natureza da dívida — de onde ela veio e como evoluiu." — The New York Times Book Review "Uma meditação sobre dívidas, tributos, presentes, religião e a falsa história do dinheiro. Pesquisador acadêmico, ativista e intelectual público, Graeber faz de toda a história das transações sociais e econômicas seu campo de estudo." — The Observer "Um pensador político brilhante e profundamente original." — Rebecca Solnit, autora de Os homens explicam tudo para mim e A mãe de todas as perguntas

We have all read fairy tales about kings and queens, princes and princesses, dragons and castles. It''s all true! They really existed! Well, except for the dragons. Dragons didn''t really exist. Somebody just made that part up (Also the talking fish.) But the kings and princesses and castles definitely existed. For much of history, most people lived under monarchies. That meant they took one person and everyone had to do anything he said, until that person died, and then they''d just do the same thing with his son or sometimes daughter. Sort of like a game of Simon Says, except the same person always gets to be Simon, and the game goes on forever. This was referred to as "government." There are two common mistakes people make about kings. One is to think that they were always there: that there''s just something odd about humans that makes them want to give one person all the power. No. That''s wrong. The other mistake is to think maybe people long ago behaved that way, but that''s because people long ago were slightly stupid, and hadn''t figured out how to hold elections or online surveys, but we certainly don''t have anything like kings now. That turns out not to be true either. It might seem to be, because we no longer have anyone dressed in elaborate costumes who can order somebody''s head chopped off - at least, in most places, we don''t - but as we''ll see, things haven''t changed nearly as much as we like to think. One thing no one can deny: kings are fun to think about. That''s why people like to dress up as them, or play games where they get to be kings or queens, or why there are so many books and stories about them. So why write another one? Well, mainly to ask: why do we find kings and queens so interesting? What is it we really like about them, and what is it we''d find annoying or even terrifying if one was actually around? Where did they come from and why do they never seem to go away? Is it possible to keep all the things we like about kings and queens and get rid of all the other ones? This book, then, is an illustrated collection of questions and answers to help us get to the bottom of all this. But it''s also meant to be entertaining because, let''s face it, kings and queens are pretty entertaining. We''ll see what happens when some people get to do absolutely anything they want, and other people try to come up with all sorts of clever strategies to keep them out of trouble. We''ll see what happens when servant girls conquer the world, mummies pretend they''re still alive, and parents build make-believe towns for their children. But we don''t want to give too much away.

Quattro saggi inediti e seminali Antropologo anarchico, critico radicale della disuguaglianza economica e sociale, David Graeber ha scritto per tutta la vita sugli effetti negativi della globalizzazione e come abbia favorito la disciplina del lavoro e il controllo sociale «Uno dei più importanti pensatori d’antropologia dei nostri tempi». Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute I quattro saggi da cui è composto questo volume corrispondono alle ricerche che David Graeber intraprese negli anni Ottanta del secolo scorso all’università̀ di Chicago. Raccolti in volume con altri nel 2007, sono uno studio antropologico delle origini del capitalismo. Visto il carattere totalizzante di quest’ultimo, esaminarle dà modo di riflettere sulle infinite possibilità̀ alternative, sempre presenti, di intendere e di vivere le relazioni sociali, i desideri, il mondo. Buone maniere, individualismo, gerarchia, proprietà̀, una critica (alla critica) del consumo, il ribaltamento dei modi di produzione, la creatività̀ sociale e il feticismo, sono solo alcuni dei temi affrontati in questa raccolta. Graeber, anarchico e tra i più brillanti antropologi della sua generazione, ha partecipato al movimento altermondialista ed è stato tra i principali agitatori di Occupy Wall Street.

"Faszinierend, provozierend, bahnbrechend. Ein Buch, das in den kommenden Jahren für Diskussionen sorgen wird." Rutger Bregman, Autor von »Utopien für Realisten« Ein großes Buch von gewaltiger intellektueller Bandbreite, neugierig, visionär, und ein Plädoyer für die Macht des direkten Handelns. David Graeber, der bedeutendste Anthropologe unserer Zeit, und David Wengrow, einer der führenden Archäologen, entfalten in ihrer großen Menschheitsgeschichte, wie sich die Anfänge unserer Zivilisation mit der Zukunft der Menschheit neu denken und verbinden lässt. Sie revidieren unser bisheriges Menschenbild und erzählen Menschheitsgeschichte, wie sie noch nie erzählt wurde. Über Jahrtausende hinweg, lange vor der Aufklärung, wurde schon jede erdenkliche Form sozialer Organisation erfunden und nach Freiheit, Wissen und Glück gestrebt. Graeber und Wengrow zeigen, wie stark die indigene Perspektive das westliche Denken beeinflusst hat und wie wichtig ihre Rückgewinnung ist. Lebendig und überzeugend ermuntern sie uns, mutiger und entschiedener für eine andere Zukunft der Menschheit einzutreten und sie durch unser Handeln zu verändern. David Graeber war der bedeutendste Kulturanthropologe seiner Generation, der wichtigste Vordenker der Occupy-Bewegung und ein weltbekannter Intellektueller. Er lebte seine Ideen von sozialer Gerechtigkeit und Befreiung, gab den Unterdrückten Hoffnung und inspirierte zahllose andere zur Nachfolge. Am 2. September 2020 starb David Graeber völlig überraschend im Alter von 59 Jahren in Venedig; drei Wochen zuvor hatten er und David Wengrow "Anfänge. Eine neue Geschichte der Menschheit" beendet. Vor mehr als zehn Jahren hatten beide Autoren ihre Arbeit an diesem Opus magnum außerhalb ihrer akademischen Verpflichtungen aufgenommen: Ein Anthropologe und ein Archäologe beleben mit dem heute vorhandenen Quellenmaterial den großen Dialog über die menschliche Geschichte wieder. Dieses Meisterwerk ist das Vermächtnis von David Graeber. »Ein faszinierendes Werk, das uns dazu bringt, die Natur der menschlichen Fähigkeiten neu zu überdenken. Es handelt von den stolzesten Momente unserer eigenen Geschichte, unserem Austausch und unserer Schuld gegenüber indigenen Kulturen und ihren vergessenen Intellektuellen. Herausfordernd und erhellend.« Noam Chomsky »Graeber und Wengrow entlarven Klischees über die weit zurückreichende Geschichte der Menschheit, um unserem Denken zu erschließen, was in der Zukunft möglich ist. Es gibt kein vitaleres, kein unserer Zeit angemesseneres Projekt.« Jaron Lanier, Autor von Anbruch einer neuen Zeit » ›Anfänge. Eine neue Geschichte der Menschheit‹ ist eine Synthese neuerer Forschungen. Dieses Buch verwirft alte und überholte Annahmen über die Vergangenheit, erneuert unsere intellektuellen und spirituellen Ressourcen und enthüllt auf wundersame Weise die Zukunft der Menschheit als offenes Ende. Es ist das erfrischendste Buch, das ich in den letzten Jahren gelesen habe.« Pankaj Mishra, Autor von Das Zeitalter des Zorns: Eine Geschichte der Gegenwart »Indem Graeber und Wengrow die neuesten archäologischen Forschungen und die jüngsten anthropologischen Aufzeichnungen durchforsten, zeigen uns die Autoren eine Welt, die vielfältiger und unerwarteter ist, als wir sie kannten, und offener und freier, als wir sie uns vorstellen. Dies ist Sozialtheorie im großen, altmodischen Sinne, vorgetragen mit fesselnder Geschwindigkeit und einem erheiternden Gefühl der Entdeckung.« Corey Robin, Brooklyn College and Graduate Center, New York, Autor von The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump »Das ist kein Buch. Das ist ein intellektuelles Fest. Es gibt kein einziges Kapitel, das (spielerisch) angepasste und eingeschliffene intellektuelle Überzeugungen umstößt. Es ist tiefgründig, mühelos ikonoklastisch, faktisch rigoros und angenehm zu lesen.« Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Autor von Der schwarze Schwan

Durante generaciones hemos visto a nuestros antepasados más remotos como seres primitivos, ingenuos y violentos. Se nos ha dicho que solo era posible alcanzar la civilización sacrificando libertades o domesticando nuestros instintos. En este ensayo, los reconocidos antropólogos David Graeber y David Wengrow demuestran que estas concepciones, que surgieron en el siglo xviii, fueron una reacción conservadora de la sociedad europea ante las críticas de los intelectuales indígenas y que no tienen un aval antropológico y arqueológico. En el rastreo de esta falsa línea de pensamiento, este libro defiende que las comunidades de la prehistoria eran mucho más cambiantes de lo que se ha pensado; un planteamiento que desarticula los relatos fundacionales más arraigados, desde el desarrollo de las ciudades hasta los orígenes del Estado, la desigualdad o la democracia. El amanecer de todo es una nueva historia de la humanidad, un texto combativo que transforma nuestra comprensión del pasado y abre camino para imaginar nuevas formas de organización social. Una obra monumental que cuestiona las ideas de pensadores como Jared Diamond, Francis Fukuyama y Yuval Noah Harari. Porque la suposición de que las sociedades se vuelven menos igualitarias y libres a medida que se hacen más complejas y «civilizadas» no es más que un mito.

Depuis des siècles, nous nous racontons sur les origines de l’inégalité une histoire très simple. Pendant l’essentiel de leur existence sur terre, les êtres humains auraient vécu au sein de petits clans de chasseurs-cueilleurs. Puis l’agriculture aurait fait son entrée, et avec elle la propriété privée. Enfin seraient nées les villes, marquant l’apparition non seulement de la civilisation, mais aussi des guerres, de la bureaucratie, du patriarcat et de l’esclavage. Or ce récit pose un gros problème : il est faux.

L’anarchisme, en tant que philosophie politique, est en plein essor. De fondement de l’organisation dans le mouvement altermondialiste qu’ils étaient, les principes anarchistes traditionnels — autonomie, association volontaire, autogestion, entraide, démocratie directe — en sont venus à jouer ce rôle dans des mouvements radicaux de toutes sortes dans le monde entier. Et pourtant, cela n’a eu presque aucun écho dans le milieu universitaire. Les anarchistes interrogent souvent les anthropologues sur leurs idées quant aux diverses façons d’organiser la société sur des bases plus égalitaires, moins aliénantes. Les anthropologues, terrifiés à l’idée de se voir accusés de romantisme, n’ont pour seule réponse que leur silence. Et s’il en était autrement ?

Ganador del Gregory Bateson Book Prize y el Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing. Todo libro de economía hace la misma aseveración: el dinero se inventó para dar solución a la complejidad creciente de los sistemas de trueque. Esta versión de la historia tiene un grave problema: no hay evidencia alguna que la sustente. Graeber expone una historia alternativa a la aparición del dinero y los mercados, y analiza cómo la deuda ha pasado de ser una obligación económica a una obligación moral. Desde el inicio de los primeros imperios agrarios, los humanos han usado elaborados sistemas de crédito para vender y comprar bienes, antes incluso de la invención de la moneda. Es hoy, transcurridos cinco mil años, cuando por primera vez nos encontramos ante una sociedad dividida entre deudores y acreedores, con instituciones erigidas con la voluntad única de proteger a los prestamistas. En deuda es una crónica fascinante y pertinente que desmonta ideas encastradas en nuestra consciencia colectiva y nos muestra la actitud ambivalente que existe ante la deuda, como motor del crecimiento económico o como herramienta de opresión.

u003eu003e „Toto není kniha. Toto je intelektuální hostina.“ – Nassim Nicholas Taleb u003cu003c # O knize LOVCI A SBĚRAČI BYLI ORGANIZOVANĚJŠÍ, NEŽ SI MYSLÍTE. A NĚKTERÁ Z PRVNÍCH MĚST SVOBODNĚJŠÍ, NEŽ BY VÁS NAPADLO. Dlouhé tisíce let jsme údajně žili v absolutně rovnostářských kmenech – než jsme vynalezli zemědělství a s ním také bohatství a chudobu, byrokracii a krutovládce. Učitelé dějepisu i autoři bestsellerů o historii tento jednoduchý příběh milují. Profesoři David Graeber a David Wengrow nyní však na spoustě příkladů dokládají, že jde o pouhý výmysl. A že skutečnost byla nesrovnatelně zajímavější a rozmanitější, než nás učili ve školních lavicích. Kniha Úsvit všeho stojí na přesvědčivých, ale dosud často opomíjených faktech z oblasti archeologie, historie a kulturní antropologie. Okamžitě se v těchto oborech stala světovou událostí a vyvolala diskuse, které budou probíhat ještě dlouhá léta. # AUTOŘI OŽIVUJÍ FASCINUJÍCÍ SVĚT, V NĚMŽ: - Naši dávní předci nebyli primitivové žijící v tlupách, ale aktivní členové pozoruhodných, malých i velkých společností. - První města na světě nezakládali zemědělci, nýbrž lovci a sběrači. Mimo jiné na území dnešní Ukrajiny. - Příchod zemědělství nebyl žádnou revolucí – trval tisíce let a některé společnosti se od něj opět odvracely. - Archeologie zmapovala obrovská města, která se obešla bez byrokracie, šlechty i tyranů. - Lidé odpradávna experimentovali s různými podobami demokracie a své rozhodovací systémy svižně přizpůsobovali okolnostem. Graeber a Wengrow nevolají po návratu na stromy. Na základě průkop- nických poznatků a archeologických objevů z celého světa nám však při- pomínají, že civilizaci můžeme budovat i bez toho, že bychom se vzdávali svých svobod. # O autorech DAVID GRAEBER (1961–2020) byl americký antropolog a anarchistický aktivista, profesor na Yaelově univerzitě, později na University of London a London School of Economics. Mimo jiné napsal knihy Dluh: prvních 5000 let nebo Utopie pravidel. Úsvit všeho je jeho nejrozsáhlejším a posledním dílem. S Davidem Wengrowem na knize pracoval deset let. Zemřel náhle, pouhé tři týdny po jejím dokončení. DAVID WENGROW (* 1972) je britský archeolog, profesor komparativní archeologie na University College London. Vedle teoretické práce vedl terénní výzkumy na území Afriky a Blízkého východu. Publikuje také na stránkách The Guardian či The New York Times. # Ohlasy „Fascinující, radikální a hravý úvod do zdánlivě vyčerpaného žánru velké evoluční historie lidstva. Nesnaží se o nic menšího než o úplné převrácení základů, na kterých spočívá běžný narativ... Erudované, přesvědčivé a často pozoruhodně zábavné.“ – Boston Review „Graeber a Wengrow nabízejí historii posledních 30 000 let, která je nejen divoce odlišná od všeho, na co jsme zvyklí, ale také mnohem zajímavější: strukturovaná, překvapivá, paradoxní, inspirující... Jejich cílem je nahradit dominantní velké vyprávění nikoli vlastní smyšlenkou, ale obrysem obrazu, který se teprve zviditelňuje, lidské minulosti plné politických experimentů a kreativity.“ – The Atlantic „Skvělá kniha, o které se bude ještě hodně debatovat. Změní pohled na historii a nasměruje výzkum k úplně novým obzorům.“ – Science #Více o knize melvil.cz/kniha-usvit-vseho

«Questo libro ha molte virtù: è accademico – e quindi rigoroso nel dare definizioni, nel classificare le prove e definire i ragionamenti – ed è anche divertente.» The Times of London «Un saggio sovversivo.» Marie Claire - Michele Mari «Con analisi brillanti e acute analizza l’attuale costume sociale di sembrare sempre impegnati anche quando non abbiamo nulla da fare... un libro illuminante.» Publishers Weekly «Ha il pregio di essere allo stesso tempo intelligente e autorevole.» The New Yorker «Un libro che compie una vera svolta.» Il Manifesto «Una disamina delle nostre vite professionali che fa riflettere e discutere.» The Financial Times Le professioni senza senso che rendono ricco e infelice chi le svolge e costituiscono il fondamento del nuovo capitalismo globale. In italiano potrebbero definirsi "lavori del cavolo". Siate onesti: se il vostro lavoro non esistesse, quanti ne sentirebbero la mancanza? Qual è il contributo significativo che offre al mondo? Nella primavera del 2013, David Graeber ha posto questi semplici interrogativi in un articolo provocatorio pubblicato online, e il successo è stato immediato: milioni di visualizzazioni, traduzioni in quasi venti lingue, condivisioni virali in tutto il mondo, campagne spontanee di guerrillia marketing da parte di attivisti politici. Perché i risultati sono stati sorprendenti: oltre il 40% degli intervistati riteneva di svolgere un lavoro inutile, un lavoro privo di senso, un «bullshit job». A partire da quelle riflessioni e perfezionandole con nuovi dati, ricerche, approfondimenti, Graeber esplora in questo libro una delle più sentite preoccupazioni dell’economia contemporanea, puntando il dito contro una deformazione tipica del capitalismo finanziario che permette a milioni di persone – consulenti per le risorse umane, coordinatori delle comunicazioni, avvocati societari – di svolgere un lavoro inutile senza impedire loro di esserne tragicamente consapevoli. David Graeber studia così i meccanismi attraverso i quali questo fenomeno – che il capitalismo efficientista doveva eliminare – si sta diffondendo oltremisura. Analisi spietata e manifesto per un nuovo umanesimo, Bullshit Jobs mostra come il lavoro, anziché finalizzato alla produzione, sia diventato fine a sé stesso, e propone soluzioni capaci di ridistribuire la ricchezza e di superare le disuguaglianze create dal nostro modello economico: non ultima, un reddito di cittadinanza che separi il lavoro dalla retribuzione.

In uno stile colloquiale e diretto, attraverso l''indagine storica, antropologica, filosofica, teologica, Graeber ribalta la versione tradizionale sulle origini dei mercati. Mostra come l''istituzione del debito sia anteriore alla moneta e come da sempre sia oggetto di aspri conflitti sociali: in Mesopotamia i sovrani dovevano periodicamente rimediare con giubilei alla riduzione in schiavitù per debiti di ampie fasce della popolazione, pena la deflagrazione di tutta la società. Da allora, la nozione di debito si è estesa alla religione come cifra delle relazioni morali ("rimetti a noi i nostri debiti") e domina i rapporti umani, definendo libertà e asservimento. Mercati e moneta non sorgono automaticamente dal baratto, come sostengono gli economisti fin dai tempi di Adam Smith, ma vengono creati dagli stati, che tassano i sudditi per finanziare le guerre e pagare i soldati. Gli ultimi 5000 anni di storia hanno visto l''alternarsi di fasi di moneta aurea e moneta creditizia, fino al definitivo abbandono dell''oro come base del sistema monetario internazionale nel 1971. Graeber esplora infine la crisi attuale, nata dall''abuso di creazione di strumenti finanziari da parte delle grandi banche deregolamentate, e sostiene la superiorità morale di cittadini e stati indebitati rispetto a creditori corrotti e senza scrupoli che vogliono ridurre libertà e democrazia alla misura dello spread sui titoli pubblici.

In 1931 Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote his famous Remarks on Frazer''s "Golden Bough.". At that time, anthropology and philosophy were in close contact--continental thinkers drew heavily on anthropology''s theoretical terms, like mana, taboo, and potlatch, in order to help them explore the limits of human belief and imagination. Now the book receives its first translation by an anthropologist, in the hope that it can kick-start a new era of interdisciplinary fertilization. Wittgenstein''s remarks on ritual, magic, religion, belief, ceremony, and Frazer''s own logical presuppositions are as lucid and thought-provoking now as they were in Wittgenstein''s day. Anthropologists find themselves asking many of the same questions as Wittgenstein--and in a reflection of that, this volume is fleshed out with a series of engagements from some of the world''s leading anthropologists, including Veena Das, David Graeber, Wendy James, Heonik Kwon, Michael Lambek, Michael Puett, and Carlo Severi.