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Silvia Federici
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Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation Paperback – Illustrated, September 15, 2004

by Silvia Federici (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars 684 ratings
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Literary Nonfiction. CALIBAN AND THE WITCH is a history of the body in the transition to capitalism. Moving from the peasant revolts of the late Middle Ages to the witch-hunts and the rise of mechanical philosophy, Federici investigates the capitalist rationalization of social reproduction. She shows how the battle against the rebel body and the conflict between body and mind are essential conditions for the development of labor power and self-ownership, two central principles of modern social organization.

"It is both a passionate work of memory recovered and a hammer of humanity's agenda."—Peter Linebaugh, author of The London Hanged
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  1. Print length
    288 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Autonomedia
  4. Publication date
    September 15, 2004
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 0.75 x 8.75 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1570270597
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1570270598
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Autonomedia
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 15, 2004
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ Illustrated
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1570270597
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1570270598
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.75 x 8.75 inches
  • Best Sellers Rank: #24,989 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 out of 5 stars 684 ratings

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Silvia Federici

Silvia Federici

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Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
684 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the book extremely readable and well-researched, providing a scientific understanding of history that explains many previously overlooked aspects. They appreciate its historical accuracy, with one customer highlighting its detailed examination of the later medieval period, and another noting its exploration of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The book receives positive feedback for its content on gender norms and relations, and one customer mentions it contains vital information for global healing. However, the readability receives mixed reviews, with some finding it unreadable, and several customers note issues with misspellings throughout the text.

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ReadabilityKnowledgeHistorical accuracyGenderPhilosophiesEnlightened contentReadablenessSpelling
23 customers mention "Readability"18 positive5 negative

Customers find the book extremely readable, with one mentioning it reads like a top-notch documentary.

"It is a good book, but the author frequently blames Karl Marx for not knowing things that there was no way for him to know." Read more

"Fantastic book..." Read more

"DENSE BUT INCREDIBLE READ." Read more

"Not the easiest read however one of the most important books on my shelf. I will be referring to this book likely until the end of my days." Read more

16 customers mention "Knowledge"14 positive2 negative

Customers praise the book's scientific understanding of history and its ability to explain concepts that have been left unexplored.

"...Fascinating and well-researched book focusing on the transition from Feudalism to Capitalism stressing its impact on women, especially the..." Read more

"Amazing research, in depth analysis" Read more

"...It is very academic, which may seem dry to some but I found it fascinating and I am very impressed with how well researched it is." Read more

"This book is amazing , It explains many things that have been left out of male / mainstream history and its shockingly brutal , i can see why men in..." Read more

8 customers mention "Historical accuracy"8 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the historical accuracy of the book, with one customer noting it provides a fascinating study of the later medieval period, while another describes it as an excellent application of historical materialism.

"This book changed my understanding of capitalism, feminism, historic witch trials in Europe and the Americas, the enclosures of the commons, what..." Read more

"This book has a very original point of view about the so called Witch Hunt: reasons were economical more than religious...." Read more

"It was a very fascinating study of the later medieval period and how all the actions against the peasantry eventually led to the witch trials...." Read more

"Wow, this book is crammed pack with history and I love that it has the sources listed. Very eye opening on a history we were never taught." Read more

6 customers mention "Gender"5 positive1 negative

Customers appreciate the book's approach to gender, with one review highlighting its analysis of gender norms and relations, while another notes its examination of the fundamental relationship of capitalist accumulation.

"This book changed my understanding of capitalism, feminism, historic witch trials in Europe and the Americas, the enclosures of the commons, what..." Read more

"...This is the fundamental relationship of capitalist accumulation, or (as it is called in decades of technical literature) 'primitive accumulation.'..." Read more

"...resistance against the process of enclosure, capitalization and expropriation, but more particularly that women often played a very major role in..." Read more

"...book however focuses on the people who struggled and fought for a world without feudalism and details their near success...." Read more

5 customers mention "Philosophies"4 positive1 negative

Customers appreciate the book's philosophical insights, with one customer noting how it changed their understanding of capitalism, while another highlights its exploration of the transition from feudalism to capitalism.

"...It explains the changes in philosophy, gender norms and relations, culture , family structure etc...." Read more

"...In this book she explores the transition from feudalism to capitalism and its affect on women...." Read more

"...point of view about the so called Witch Hunt: reasons were economical more than religious...." Read more

"...Finally, it has reformist implications. It assumes that somehow the system does not recognize the contribution of housework when it actually does...." Read more

4 customers mention "Enlightened content"4 positive0 negative

Customers find the book enlightening, with one mentioning it contains vital information for global healing.

"This book is thought-provoking...." Read more

"...It was very inspiring but also depressing to read about how hard Europeans were fighting against Capitalism...." Read more

"I purchased this book for a feminist literature class and I found it enlightening...." Read more

"This books contains vital information for global healing and the awakening of human consciousness. And, it's heavy and slow to read...." Read more

7 customers mention "Readableness"3 positive4 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the readability of the book, with some finding it unreadable.

"...The photos and illustrations are just muddy blobs. It reflects very badly on Amazon that they allowed such an abortion to go on sale...." Read more

"This book provides a very clear exposure of the how's and why's of today's disciplinary policy." Read more

"...all over, unusual spaces and symbols between words, and none of the images work...." Read more

"...It contains powerful images, many are woodcuts (one of the first uses of the printing press)...." Read more

5 customers mention "Spelling"0 positive5 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the book's spelling, with several noting numerous misspellings throughout the text.

"...With so many weird spaces and spelling errors, I couldn't get past the first few pages. This is a garbled mess" Read more

"...There are misspellings all over, unusual spaces and symbols between words, and none of the images work...." Read more

"There are many formatting issues in the Kindle edition that make it unreadable." Read more

"This digital book consists only of raw text from a particularly bad optical character recognition program, completely unedited...." Read more

This book is amazing, It explains many things that have been left ...
5 out of 5 stars
This book is amazing, It explains many things that have been left ...
This book is amazing , It explains many things that have been left out of male / mainstream history and its shockingly brutal , i can see why men in power dont want you to know the history.Its helped me understand more about the society i am living in , and the causes and how the system of exploitation works.
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Top reviews from the United States

  • John R. Wade
    5.0 out of 5 stars Capitalism transformed contemporary societies into he worker class.
    Reviewed in the United States on May 24, 2022
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    The book is beautifully written, with insight into the way women have been co-opted into workers and producers of labor.
    Women have a long history as nurturers and healers, as the spiritual force in society.
    But in service to capitalism forces, the Church and the state have subverted women and forced them into submission by the use of the witch hunt.
    Labeling women as witches has become a 21st century metaphor for Church and state control of women’s reproductive rights.
    This is a wonderful book.
    14 people found this helpful
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  • M. A. Krul
    5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent study of women and original accumulation
    Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2007
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Silvia Federici's book "Caliban and the Witch" demonstrates the absolute necessity of women's studies for a thorough and scientific understanding of history. Focusing on the role of women and the body in the process by Marx and Adam Smith described as "original accumulation", i.e. the violent expropriation of the feudal commons in the movement towards a capitalist society, Federici demonstrates that a true war against women was an important part of the ruling class' strategy.

    The book assesses various aspects of this development, including witchcraft and the witch-hunts, the "Christianization" (or rather Catholization) of the North and South American native civilizations, the role of philosophical mechanism and the developers of the scientific method (Bacon, Descartes, Newton, Hobbes, etc.), and the early slave trade. In each case Federici masterfully shows how this development came to be, what role it played in the process of 'original accumulation', and why it was favored temporarily by the ruling class. She also gives very strong evidence that things like fear of witchcraft, patriarchy, racism etc., often seen as the inevitable and 'natural' results of ignorance and superstition in those societies, were in reality forced onto the common people as part of a top-down campaign to destroy the backbone of the feudal communities.

    What is an additional interesting contribution of this book is Federici's evidence that there was not only widespread peasant resistance against the process of enclosure, capitalization and expropriation, but more particularly that women often played a very major role in these resistance movements, especially after the German Peasant War ended in a massacre. Many of the women who would later be burned and persecuted as witches were likely survivors of these resistance movements and therefore both had strong connections with local farming communities and resentment against authority, a dangerous combination for the ruling classes. To me it was also remarkable new information to learn about how common female wage-labor in the cities was in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, as well as the degree of acceptance of sexuality and magic. Of course we should not in any way try to paint too rosy a picture of the late feudal era, which everyone knows had enough terror and tyranny of its own, but Federici shows that even then there was a strong current of people resisting both (proto-)capitalism and its predecessor.

    In her historical panorama, Federici adresses many other writers on women and the body and their subjugation, in particular the feminists, Marx, Foucault and such people as Le Roy Ladurie and Carlo Ginzburg. In my view Federici overstates her case against Marx a bit; she is correct that the role of the subjugation of women in particular was not much addressed by him, but it certainly was by Engels, and I also think that the insights she shows in this work would have been able to count on Marx' full assent. She also seems to miss the fact that "primitive accumulation" is a mistranslation of Marx' term, so that accusations of Marx missing the fact that such expropriatory violence takes place as part of capitalism even today miss the mark.

    Stronger is her case against Foucault, where she can show that Foucault not only completely ignores the importance of the witch-hunts and the Plague as turning points for feudal and post-feudal society, but that he also locates his famous instrumentalist subjugation of the body far too late in history (Foucault places it at the late 18th century, Federici rather in the 16th). In any case the scope of her knowledge of writers on these subjects is great, and the way in which she gives a context to the ideas of Descartes and other mechanists on "L'Homme Machine" (the term is 18th C.) is striking.

    Overall, this is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in history, original accumulation and women's studies.
    151 people found this helpful
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  • Phoenix Rising
    5.0 out of 5 stars Caliban and the Witch
    Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2010
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    In Caliban and the Witch, Silvia Federici, long time feminist activist and teacher, opens once darkened windows of forbidden knowledge--windows many readers have never dared to look through. Through these windows, the reader can finally view the often terrible truth of the universal war against women. From the birth of the proletariat, to the witch trials, and through colonization and the slave trade, Federici documents the unspeakable terrors that women have had to endure at the hands of patriarchy.

    Federici's indepth knowledge, uncompromising honesty, and accessible writing style bring this historical narrative to life. This is not a dry reading of endless historical facts. Federici makes these facts sing out from the page.

    This is an excellent read. One you're not going to want to miss.
    25 people found this helpful
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  • Joyce
    5.0 out of 5 stars Good history for women
    Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2017
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Federici’s work on feminism goes back to the 1970’s when she felt neither the Radical Feminists nor the Social Feminists provided a satisfactory explanation of the roots of the exploitation of women. In this book she explores the transition from feudalism to capitalism and its affect on women. The title draws on Shakespeare’s The Tempest with Caliban representing the anti-colonial rebel and the Witch representing female heretics, healers, disobedient wives, women who dared to live alone, and those who inspired slaves to revolt. Compare that model of strong women to the new model of femininity which emerged at the end of the 17th Century (after centuries of state terrorism): ideal wife, passive, obedient, thrifty, chaste. Federici investigates the 300 years of witch hunts of the Middle Ages, the role of which she sees to create out of the female body workers for the burgeoning capitalist economy. She tells the horrific story of the many ways that the power of women was destroyed culminating in the massacre and cruel torture of hundreds of thousands of women. The witch hunt was a turning point in women’s lives. No doubt the psyche of every woman is affected still by so many of the strongest of us being so treated. Yet the witch hunt is one of the most understudied phenomena in European history.
    156 people found this helpful
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  • Wes Modes
    5.0 out of 5 stars Most Important book you’ll ever read
    Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2019
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    This book changed my understanding of capitalism, feminism, historic witch trials in Europe and the Americas, the enclosures of the commons, what came before Capitalism, and what we might envision as an alternative after. All in an extremely readable and thoroughly researched volume.
    62 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Mina Rix
    5.0 out of 5 stars Like new
    Reviewed in Australia on April 7, 2025
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    Like new affordable and fast delivery
    Report
  • Amajohn
    5.0 out of 5 stars La date d'arrivée du colis.
    Reviewed in France on May 17, 2023
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    Livre et paquetage en parfait état, conforme à mon attente.
    Report
  • Diana King
    5.0 out of 5 stars devastating book about misogyny
    Reviewed in Spain on February 5, 2023
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    No one ‘likes’ a book like this. It is well researched erudite feminist text. Hopefully the landscape is changing
    Report
  • Kevin Jackson
    5.0 out of 5 stars Must read for Critical Disability studies scholars and students
    Reviewed in Canada on October 9, 2018
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Federici's best known work, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation, expands on the work of Leopoldina Fortunati. In it, she argues against Karl Marx's claim that primitive accumulation is a necessary precursor for capitalism.
    Silvia Federici - Wikipedia
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvia_Federici
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  • Claudia
    5.0 out of 5 stars wow. just wow
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 22, 2019
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    this... I am on my second re-read already, and I plan on doing way more. This is an INCREDIBLE book that has opened so many avenues of knowledge that I was completely ignorant of before. I have recommended it to everyone because I really believe it should be a compulsory read. It's full of well-researched information, but not hard to read at all. Just get it.
    Report