Description

Brought to you by Penguin

The Enlightenment did not begin in Europe Its true origins lie thousands of miles away on the island of Madagascar in the late seventeenth century when it was home to several thousand pirates This was the Golden Age of Piracy a period of violent buccaneering and rollicking legends but it was also argues anthropologist David Graeber a brief window of radical democracy as the pirate settlers attempted to apply the egalitarian principles of their ships to a new society on land

For Graeber Madagascars lost pirate utopia represents some of the first stirrings of Enlightenment political thought In this jewel of a book he offers a way to decolonise the Enlightenment demonstrating how this mixed community experimented with an alternative vision of human freedom far from that being formulated in the salons and coffee houses of Europe Its actors were Malagasy women merchants and traders philosopher kings and escaped slaves exploring ideas that were ultimately to be put into practice in by Western revolutionary regimes a century later

Pirate Enlightenment is a retelling of Enlightenment myths In their place comes a story about the magic sea battles purloined princesses manhunts makebelieve kingdoms fraudulent ambassadors spies jewel thieves poisoners and devil worship that lie at the origins of modern freedom

David Graeber 2023 P Penguin Audio 2023