tags

anthropology

• May 19, 2023 Dawn Of EverythingGraerber and Wengrow paint a compelling and beautiful painting of new potentials for understanding the past & present. They set up a neat dichotomy between a Rousseaun and Hobbesian view of the origins of humanity, before bravely pointing out that it was maybe a bit more complicated than all that. Some powerful ideas around political and social organizational structure experimentation, differing practices and paradigms, the impact of play and the view of humanity as effectively originating in play. They walk an interesting line between criticizing the anthropologists who revere and idolize the way of life outside the State, and at the same time offering optimistict and bordering-on utopian interpretations of the same - but, after all, they have a good story for all of it, and a smattering of impactful and transformative ideas to think on. An edifying read.
• Aug 27, 2023 DebtI was, to be frank, prepared to be bored by this - "debt" is a dry, intuitive concept which seemed little deserving of 500 pages of exegesis. The book seemed vaguely Important and not a bit hip, but not...interesting. Then he got me, in the first chapter arguing with some woman in a garden party. She said "surely, one has to pay one's debts" in response to learning about the IMF enforcing loan repayment from impoverished third world countries; he has half a dozen arguments as to why morally, economically, historically that just doesn't make sense. As a one who generally has probably trended towards the mindset of having to pay one's debts, it was a bit, revelatory? Not judt that he presented persuasive arguments, I was not far from being persuaded, but it was an incredibly clear, efficient encapsulation of a point of view, incredibly easy to digest.
• Oct 23, 2023 Pirate EnlightenmentThis book is a fascinating little history of Madagascar and the kingdoms and societies during the golden age of piracy. I (and I imagine I am not unique here) know little of this corner of the world and corner of history, and enjoyed learning about the unique cultural mixture driven by the intersection of Arabs, pirates, slavers, colonists, and Madagascar people. Graeber's writing is as always entertaining and educational, although there is not much here of his usual grand claims of historiographical reinterpretation and generalization - it is a more focused anthropology that I think likely has a less wide interest than the exciting title and Graeber's name might otherwise incur.
• Mar 29, 2024 How Forests ThinkBased on its snappy title, I was expecting this to be a study of a particular form of non-western ecological philosophy - but the first chapter claimed the book would be a provincialization of European thought! Not merely other ideas but new ways of having ideas! An ambitious goal! In the end, it was neither.
• Dec 7, 2025 Seeing Like a State