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gilnean's review against another edition
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: War, Slavery, Colonisation, Misogyny, Classism, Murder, Violence, Death, Sexism, Racial slurs, Torture, Antisemitism, and Genocide
Moderate: Rape, Sexual content, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Confinement, Trafficking, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Infidelity, Xenophobia, Pedophilia, Child death, Animal death, Cannibalism, Body horror, Terminal illness, Alcohol, Excrement, and Religious bigotry
lindsaysofia_25's review
challenging
funny
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
I absolutely loved this book. I read it thinking that the information it provided would be valuable but expecting to be bored reading it, especially considering it's 400 pages long + 100 pages of notes/bibliography/index... I was very pleasantly surprised. As Graeber himself says in the afterword, coming at this topic as an anthropologist rather than as an economist or historian gave it a comparative and very human perspective that really added to the book as a whole. The introduction of the concept of communism as the base of human interaction was a tidbit I did not expect from this book but very much appreciate. I certainly see why it won the awards it did! I also must say I appreciate the homage given to feminist historians and other branches of the feminist tradition. This is one of the only nonfiction books I would recommend to friends who don't normally read nonfiction.
Content Warnings
Minor: Rape, Domestic abuse, Murder, and Torture
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