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On Sept 2, the anthropologist David Graeber passed away. The New York Review of Books has collected powerful statements of his academic colleagues and activist comrades which show the sheer range of his intellectual pursuits, the vigor with which he threw himself into political struggle — and just how heavy weighs the loss of this man who was for so many of us the very model of a scholar-activist.

As one obituary had it, Graeber “a cosmic mind, worked on the very largest scale. He was interrupted mid-flight [Graeber, cosmique, faisait les choses en grand. Il a été interrompu en plein vol.].” His erudition of cosmic expanse combined with his signature blend of humor, care, clarity, and curiosity to make Graeber a consummate essayist. His article on Bullshit Jobs, later expanded into a book, has become a classic. Not as well known, though they should be, are these two essays. What’s the Point if We Can’t Have Fun? argues for the centrality of play in every attempt to understand the human condition. Boldly stepping onto philosophy’s turf, it is a dazzling tour-de-force touching on everything from the nature of consciousness to competing accounts of what makes an explanation scientific to metaphysical speculations about the mindedness of matter to, finally, an ancient Chinese anecdote, which he interprets with masterful delicacy. Closer to intellectual history is his short introduction to one his own heroes, the French anthropologist Marcel Mauss and the Mouvement Anti-Utilitariste dans les Sciences Sociales, MAUSS for short, that took inspiration of his work and which has unjustly been neglected in the English-speaking world in favor of mainstream French postmodernism. May his memory be a blessing.