PIRATE ENLIGHTENMENT, OR, THE REAL LIBERTALIA - DAVID GRAEBER

The last of the Graeber stuff is slowly coming out. I have no idea how much stuff he left behind after his surprising and deeply tragic death 3 years ago, he was quite prolific so I imagine it is a lot, though I also do not know how much they intend to publish. It’s such a shame we were robbed of another 30 years worth of his insights and output. So it goes, I suppose. That being said, I’m quite excited that one of his last books centers on a topic near and dear to my heart, Madagascar. Having lived there for years, I’m always interested in any English language work on the Malagasy people (less so the wildlife, which gets most of the attention) and Graeber is one of the greatest and most interesting anthropologists of his generation so this was a real match made in heaven for me. This short book focuses on what is something of a legend in Madagascar, the Pirate Utopia of Libertalia. The basic idea is that in the golden age of Piracy, a number of pirates camped out on Ile St. Marie, a small island off of Madagascar's East coast where they hung out and established a sort of radically democratic quasi-state. Despite not being all-the-way true, this idea has been quite sticky and shown up in all sorts of places and there really were pirates on that Island, their graveyard is still there. Graeber uses this legend as a jumping off point for discussing what actually went down during the late 1600s and early 1700s on Madagascar’s East coast. He traces the enlightenment era ideas and values that some of these pirates held (see Marcus Rediker if you want to know more about that) and how they were understood and integrated into Malagasy society, especially the Betsimisaraka confederation that formed during this time. Graeber, as always, is great about centering the non-Europeans and treating them as real people with ideals and goals and intellect who are trying to figure out and shape their world. He makes sure to emphasize the back and forth of exchange and the ways that ideas move and change in the world. This book is sort a case-study for the thesis he lays out in his long essay, “There Never Was a West” which I recommend to people often. If you’re interested in Madagascar, I’d dive into this for sure. It’s a lesser Graeber but we’re only getting the leftovers at this point so I’ll take what I can get.