‘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. This new collection brings together the renowned anthropologist, author and activist’s most visionary essays, showing him imagining a new understanding of the past – and a future based on humans’ fundamental freedom.

Drawn from more than two decades of pathbreaking writing, and ranging across the biggest issues of our time – inequality, technology, the identity of ‘the West,’ democracy, art, power, anger, mutual aid and protest – Graeber’s essays challenge the old assumptions about political life. Despite converging political, economic, and ecological crises, our politics is still dominated by either ‘business as usual’ or nostalgia for a mythical past. Instead, Graeber shows himself to be a trenchant critic of the order of things, driven by a bold imagination and a passionate hope that our world can be different.

The incisive, entertaining and urgent essays collected in The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World make for essential reading. They are a profound reminder of Graeber’s enduring significance as an inspiring and necessary thinker.

Foreword
Introduction

PART I: THERE NEVER WAS A WEST
There Never Was a West

PART II: AGAINST ECONOMICS
Finance Is Just Another Word for Other People’s Debts (An interview with Hannah Chadeayne Appel)
On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs
Against Economics
Soak the Rich (Debate with Thomas Piketty)

PART III: BEYOND POWER
Culture as Creative Refusal
Hatred Has Become a Political Taboo
Dead Zones of the Imagination
The Bully’s Pulpit
I Didn’t Understand How Widespread Rape Was. Then the Penny Dropped
On the Phenomenology of the Giant Puppets

PART IV: THE REVOLT OF THE CARING CLASS
Are You an Anarchist?
Army of Altruists
Caring Too Much
The Revolt of the Caring Classes

PART V: WHAT’S THE POINT IF WE CAN’T HAVE FUN?
Another Art World, I (with Nika Dubrovsky)
Museum of Care (with Nika Dubrovsky)
What’s the Point If We Can’t Have Fun?