Status
Available
Call number
Collections
Publication
Allen Lane (2023), Edition: 1, 208 pages
Description
"Pirates have long lived in the realm of romance and fantasy, symbolizing risk, lawlessness, and radical visions of freedom. But at the root of this mythology is a rich history of pirate societies--vibrant, imaginative experiments in self-governance and alternative social formations at the edges of the European empire. In graduate school, David Graeber conducted ethnographic field research in Madagascar for his doctoral thesis on the island's politics and history of slavery and magic. During this time, he encountered the Zana-Malata, an ethnic group of mixed descendants of the many pirates who settled on the island at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia, Graeber's final posthumous book, is the outgrowth of this early research and the culmination of ideas that he developed in his classic, bestselling works Debt and The Dawn of Everything (written with the archaeologist David Wengrow). In this lively, incisive exploration, Graeber considers how the protodemocratic, even libertarian practices of the Zana-Malata came to shape the Enlightenment project defined for too long as distinctly European. He illuminates the non-European origins of what we consider to be "Western" thought and endeavors to recover forgotten forms of social and political order that gesture toward new, hopeful possibilities for the future."--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member DavidWineberg
I don’t know which was less likely: a new book by the late, great David Graeber, or a new book on pirates (of all things) by David Graeber. But there it was and I grabbed it. As usual, I was not disappointed. In Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia, Graeber uses northeast Madagascar as an
Pirates were the talk of the whole world in the late 1600s and early 1700s. They were written up, romanticized and made into legends. They stole ships and made them into pirate battleships. They hid their loot all over the world, because it was very difficult to change it into cash. But the most important thing, at least for this book, is that they ran egalitarian societies both onboard and onshore when they tried to settle down. David Graeber spent two years in Madagascar, studying the numerous societies and the island’s history. This is the story of how they influenced each other.
It’s a short book (as Graeber books go). It was meant to be an essay in a collection of them, but it was too long. But also too short for a real book, so it languished until now (though it was published in French four years ago). It reveals the intensity Graeber applied to his anthropological side. He was an anthropology professor at the London School of Economics until his death at the age of 59 three years ago. And a big egalitarian.
Naturally, history books are not very forthcoming for the kind of detail Graeber insisted on. The most important such book is the biography of a legendary pirate that Graeber challenges from every angle. The grains of truth in it take considerable thought to distill. He concludes: “So the first real ethnographic accounts we have of Madagascar are really notes written by a spy in order to allow a con man to better fabricate accounts of his non-existent exploits.” To which I would add: In a nonexistent country called Libertalia. Good luck drawing conclusions from that. But Graeber could and did.
After some rousing text on pirates settling in Madagascar – as many as several thousand did, he says – the book turns its focus to the natives for most of the rest. The Malagasy lived in tribes, extended families really. Every village was independent. They were forever forming alliances and breaking them, going to war and pledging loyalty to each other. But they were also quite egalitarian compared to most other societies, then or now. There were the self-appointed kings, and everyone else. Some had three levels of the highest ranks, but most were simply a king and his people. Kings got removed, and intrigue brought new ones to the fore.
The pirates had an enduring effect on them. The natives immediately welcomed them and absorbed them by marriage. Pirates were valued assets because they came on huge ships from exotic foreign lands, were apparently very rich, somewhat educated, and mostly white – all of which made them stand out. And they represented international trade, the most valuable trait of all. Scheming women (women carried out most of the commerce but none of the politics) could and did marry them and made them king. So pirates settled into villages all over the northeast quarter of the island. “Each local group came to have their own local class of stranger-princes, or, as I’ve termed them, ‘internal outsider,’ who were foreigners to their Malagasy neighbors, but Malagasy to foreigners.”
The book is even more focused, however. Because just off the east coast of Madagascar is a long slim parallel island called Sainte-Marie, a microcosm of villages, tribes, politics and philosophies. Pirates hid in the coves and ventured onshore to trade. Graeber’s story then uses a framework of one man, Ratsimilaho, who became king at a very young age, proving himself not so much a warrior but as an organizer. He managed to assemble a confederacy called Betsimisaraka that endured for over thirty years. Thirty years of peace and stability, egalitarianism, and even respect. Complaints were handled by ad hoc committees. Punishments were relatively mild and sentences respected throughout the land. It was the same structure pirates employed on their ships, where captains held their rank by approval of the crew, committees managed all aspects of the voyage, loot was split up fairly, and life was not oppressive. The exact opposite of the lives they left behind in England or France or Spain.
There are lots of rumors but no certainty over Ratsimilaho’s family, how much of a role pirates played, where and how he was educated and what his influences were. But by the age of twenty, he was king and consolidating a whole confederacy. And unfortunately, his plans to pass it all on to his children failed totally. A worthwhile story in itself.
Malagasy wars were fought over trade, or broken promises. Graeber says “While most of the strategy of the war concentrated on maintaining or disrupting supply lines—making it, effectively, continuous with trade—actual combat was classically heroic, full of individual exploits, duels, exchanges of personal challenges and insults, much as one would expect to find in a Homeric, Icelandic, or Maori epic.” Battles would stop while the warriors witnessed an epic match between the greatest from each side. Oaths were made to the effect that once this war is over I will swear loyalty to you, or after this is over our peoples will unite. It was the stuff of myths.
Eventually, the pirates simply disappeared, having been absorbed by their new families. Madagascar is no longer a paradise of equality. It has been in a killer drought for years, and the only real equality is that most suffer the same way in a still largely agrarian society where cattle are the most valuable possession, and the most expensive to maintain.
As usual with David Graeber, the research is phenomenal. The details are impressive. The analysis is sterling. He manages to gain perspective on a complex island nation that does not have a written history, but innumerable tiny villages and outposts, each representing independent peoples. That they actually appreciated mixed marriages and valued the children produced by them, that they controlled the pirates and drove them off if they abused their privilege, and had heroic cultures based on word of honor - is all very utopian. If anything, this book proves it can be done, even with pirates.
David Wineberg
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example of complex societies being influenced by the egalitarian philosophies of 17th century western pirates. This is something only a David Graeber could tackle. Successfully.Pirates were the talk of the whole world in the late 1600s and early 1700s. They were written up, romanticized and made into legends. They stole ships and made them into pirate battleships. They hid their loot all over the world, because it was very difficult to change it into cash. But the most important thing, at least for this book, is that they ran egalitarian societies both onboard and onshore when they tried to settle down. David Graeber spent two years in Madagascar, studying the numerous societies and the island’s history. This is the story of how they influenced each other.
It’s a short book (as Graeber books go). It was meant to be an essay in a collection of them, but it was too long. But also too short for a real book, so it languished until now (though it was published in French four years ago). It reveals the intensity Graeber applied to his anthropological side. He was an anthropology professor at the London School of Economics until his death at the age of 59 three years ago. And a big egalitarian.
Naturally, history books are not very forthcoming for the kind of detail Graeber insisted on. The most important such book is the biography of a legendary pirate that Graeber challenges from every angle. The grains of truth in it take considerable thought to distill. He concludes: “So the first real ethnographic accounts we have of Madagascar are really notes written by a spy in order to allow a con man to better fabricate accounts of his non-existent exploits.” To which I would add: In a nonexistent country called Libertalia. Good luck drawing conclusions from that. But Graeber could and did.
After some rousing text on pirates settling in Madagascar – as many as several thousand did, he says – the book turns its focus to the natives for most of the rest. The Malagasy lived in tribes, extended families really. Every village was independent. They were forever forming alliances and breaking them, going to war and pledging loyalty to each other. But they were also quite egalitarian compared to most other societies, then or now. There were the self-appointed kings, and everyone else. Some had three levels of the highest ranks, but most were simply a king and his people. Kings got removed, and intrigue brought new ones to the fore.
The pirates had an enduring effect on them. The natives immediately welcomed them and absorbed them by marriage. Pirates were valued assets because they came on huge ships from exotic foreign lands, were apparently very rich, somewhat educated, and mostly white – all of which made them stand out. And they represented international trade, the most valuable trait of all. Scheming women (women carried out most of the commerce but none of the politics) could and did marry them and made them king. So pirates settled into villages all over the northeast quarter of the island. “Each local group came to have their own local class of stranger-princes, or, as I’ve termed them, ‘internal outsider,’ who were foreigners to their Malagasy neighbors, but Malagasy to foreigners.”
The book is even more focused, however. Because just off the east coast of Madagascar is a long slim parallel island called Sainte-Marie, a microcosm of villages, tribes, politics and philosophies. Pirates hid in the coves and ventured onshore to trade. Graeber’s story then uses a framework of one man, Ratsimilaho, who became king at a very young age, proving himself not so much a warrior but as an organizer. He managed to assemble a confederacy called Betsimisaraka that endured for over thirty years. Thirty years of peace and stability, egalitarianism, and even respect. Complaints were handled by ad hoc committees. Punishments were relatively mild and sentences respected throughout the land. It was the same structure pirates employed on their ships, where captains held their rank by approval of the crew, committees managed all aspects of the voyage, loot was split up fairly, and life was not oppressive. The exact opposite of the lives they left behind in England or France or Spain.
There are lots of rumors but no certainty over Ratsimilaho’s family, how much of a role pirates played, where and how he was educated and what his influences were. But by the age of twenty, he was king and consolidating a whole confederacy. And unfortunately, his plans to pass it all on to his children failed totally. A worthwhile story in itself.
Malagasy wars were fought over trade, or broken promises. Graeber says “While most of the strategy of the war concentrated on maintaining or disrupting supply lines—making it, effectively, continuous with trade—actual combat was classically heroic, full of individual exploits, duels, exchanges of personal challenges and insults, much as one would expect to find in a Homeric, Icelandic, or Maori epic.” Battles would stop while the warriors witnessed an epic match between the greatest from each side. Oaths were made to the effect that once this war is over I will swear loyalty to you, or after this is over our peoples will unite. It was the stuff of myths.
Eventually, the pirates simply disappeared, having been absorbed by their new families. Madagascar is no longer a paradise of equality. It has been in a killer drought for years, and the only real equality is that most suffer the same way in a still largely agrarian society where cattle are the most valuable possession, and the most expensive to maintain.
As usual with David Graeber, the research is phenomenal. The details are impressive. The analysis is sterling. He manages to gain perspective on a complex island nation that does not have a written history, but innumerable tiny villages and outposts, each representing independent peoples. That they actually appreciated mixed marriages and valued the children produced by them, that they controlled the pirates and drove them off if they abused their privilege, and had heroic cultures based on word of honor - is all very utopian. If anything, this book proves it can be done, even with pirates.
David Wineberg
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Language
Original publication date
2019
Physical description
208 p.; 8.74 inches
ISBN
0241611407 / 9780241611401