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“IN HIS NEW BOOK The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement, David Graeber rejects the notion that “democracy” means the freedom to cast a desultory vote for this or that candidate’s slate of corporate-sponsored beliefs. Instead, Graeber wants to reclaim the word to describe the kinds of inclusive and participatory modes of self-government practiced by protesters at Occupy Wall Street. An economic anthropologist by training, Graeber self-identifies as a “professional optimist,” and for pragmatists — to say nothing of the cynics and inveterate pessimists — even a sympathetic reading of The Democracy Project will likely be punctuated by huffs, puffs, and eye-rolls. But, while his upbeat radicalism sometimes flirts with incoherence and naïveté, Graeber’s call to reshape the politics of everyday life around democratic practices is nevertheless striking in its ambition.”