Customer Reviews

Possibilities: Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion, and Desire

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Possibilities is really the best of scholarship: an incredibly smart, well-read person putting together different strands of thought to create a unique perspective. Noone writing today is better at explaining anarchism and applying anti-hierarchical, anti-authoritarian thinking to a wide range of subjects; knowing that the author is also an activist only enhances his arguments. Can easily be read (and enjoyed) by non-academics. A truly wonderful book.

Having rushed through the first part of the book (of 3) i feel now compelled to come back and read it again, just to make sure i understood it correctly. Not that the ideas themselves are complicated, but i feel i haven't fully grasped the breath of consequences and interpretations that they provide.

Which is to say: Graeber's book is at once extremely original and extremely relevant. I am pretty sure that i will not be able to face salary-work the same way again after reading his analysis of modes-of-production --- not that i had never heard that a job is a form of slavery, but his arguments make the connection much deeper, albeit more subtle too.

This is no sissy science, trying to make acceptable claims with defensible arguments. Graeber reinterprets classical arguments as he sees fit. But in the end, what we get is actually a clearer idea of society, both more aware of history and more technologically astute than your usual social scientist.

Finally, he claims that his aim with those texts is to keep possibilities open, and i am pretty sure he achieves it.

some of the chapters can be kind of boring if youre not into anthropological studies of Madagascar and so on. if you are just interested in the essays that pertain to anarchism or social movements then the book is still worth the buy but be prepared to be disinterested with some of the book.

i read the anthropological essays and could tell how he was linking them to our society but for the lay(wo)men he could have condensed them and we would have been happier.

overall, a good, interesting, worthy read!