Skip to content

David Graeber

in association with
  • About David
    • Autobiography
    • Interviews
    • Memorials
    • Press
  • Works
    • Books
    • Articles
    • Papers
  • Media
    • Videos
    • Audios
    • Twitter
    • Music Library
  • Projects
  • Link to youtube

Books

Anarchy – In a Manner of Speaking

Anarchy—In a Manner of Speaking presents a series of interviews with David Graeber. Known for his writings on debt, bureaucracy, and “bullshit jobs,” as well as his role in the Occupy Wall Street movement, David discusses the history and future of anarchy. Interviewers Mehdi Belhaj Kacem, Nika Dubrovsky, and Assia Turquier-Zauberman delve into the connections between anthropology and anarchism, exploring its influence on movements like Occupy and the Yellow Vests. Graeber also reflects on anarchist ethics in politics, art, love, and more, with humor and insight.
First published 2020 Translations: Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Turkish

Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology

Everywhere anarchism is on the upswing as a political philosophy, 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.
First published 2004 Translations: Chinese (Simplified), Czech, Danish, English, French, German, Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovene, Spanish, Turkish

Direct Action: an Ethnography

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 Québec 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.
First published 2009 Translations: English, German, Italian

Anthropology for Kids: Protest

The History of Protest: The Book That Should be Continued This book is about protests which were organized by people in different countries and pursued different aims. It is composed of subjective, almost private remarks and opinions, as opposed to being structured around a single history or theory. Nika Dubrovsky: I see my goal in creating space for your thoughts, ideas, and feelings. Since this book is a doodle book: I want you, my reader and co-author, to join me in the quest to imagine different futures and rethink the past. What would you come up with, if you were in the protesters’ shoes? What are the options, but even more important, what do we want? I think that posing a question is half an answer.
First published 2016 Translations: English, Finnish

Lost People: Magic and the Legacy of Slavery in Madagascar

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.
First published 2007 Translations: English, Russian

Toward An Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams

Now a widely cited classic, 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 ongoing quandaries in current social theory, which have become critical at the present moment of ideological collapse in the face of Neoliberalism.    
First published 2002 Translations: Croatian, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Turkish

On Kings

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.
First published 2017 Translations: English, French, German, Italian, Russian

The Democracy Project

In this book, David takes readers on a journey through the idea of democracy, provocatively reorienting our understanding of pivotal historical moments, and extracts their lessons for today—from the birth of Athenian democracy and the founding of the United States of America to the global revolutions of the twentieth century and the rise of a new generation of activists. Underlying it all is a bracing argument that in the face of increasingly concentrated wealth and power in this country, a reenergized, reconceived democracy—one based on consensus, equality, and broad participation—can yet provide us with the just, free, and fair society we want.
First published 2012 Translations: Arabic, Chinese (Traditional), English, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish

Possibilities

In this collection, David Graeber revisits questions raised in his popular book, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. Written in an unpretentious style that uses accessible and entertaining language to convey complex theoretical ideas, these twelve essays cover a lot of ground, including the origins of capitalism, the history of European table manners, love potions in rural Madagascar, and the phenomenology of giant puppets at street protests. But they’re linked by a clear purpose: to explore the nature of social power and the forms that resistance to it have taken, or might take in the future.
First published 2007 Translations: English, French, Greek, Korean, Spanish

Uprisings: An Illustrated Guide to Popular Rebellion (KAIROS)

Published 3 May 2022 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.
Translations: English

Revolutions in Reverse: Essays on Politics, Violence, Art, and Imagination

2012 In this collection of essays, David Graeber examines the unraveling of capitalism and the seeming lack of alternatives, arguing that perpetual growth on a finite planet is unsustainable. While many cling to the current system out of fear of worse alternatives, David suggests the political imagination is not as limited as it seems. Drawing from politics, art, and creativity, he explores new possibilities for redefining common sense and reimagining what people can expect from the world and each other.
First published 2009 Translations: Czech, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Norwegian, Turkish

Constituent Imagination: Militant Investigations, Collective Theorization

Constituent Imagination: Militant Investigation is a collection of 20 essays covering a broad range of academic voices on activism and global struggles, and why the time of the detached intellectual may be over. A powerful and unabashedly militant collection of work including writing from Antonio Negri, Colectivo Situaciones, David Graeber and Stevphen Shukaitis among many other engaged academics.
First published 2007 Translations: English

Posts pagination

Previous 1 2 3 Next

Contact us

Rights inquiries

info@davidgraeber.org

Privacy policy

 

Projects

Anthropology For Kids

Museum of Care

The Yes Women

Visual Assembly