Pirate Enlightenment, or The Real Libertalia

The last book published posthumously by American anthropologist David Graeber (1961-2020) is the result of his expedition to Madagascar, which he undertook as a graduate student at the University of Chicago. In his work, Graeber sharply criticizes the Eurocentric view that ‘primitive peoples’ can only become civilized through the enlightened management of Europeans. This book is a bold attempt to return anthropology and ethnography to their original purpose: the search for an alternative perspective on the development of society and culture. Graeber ‘decolonizes Enlightenment’, arguing that the roots of the ideas of equality, freedom, and justice should be sought beyond ‘Western civilization’. He unequivocally asserts that the very fictional egalitarian ‘pirate kingdoms’ like Libertalia did indeed exist in some form. Using the example of the Confederation of Betsimisaraka, Graeber describes the structure of a real project for the ‘society of the future’ that only Thomas More and other utopian authors had fantasized about.