Review of Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia – David Graeber

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, Madagascar’s lost pirate utopia represents some of the first stirrings of Enlightenment political thought. In this jewel of a book, he offers a way to ‘decolonize 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 by Western revolutionary regimes a century later.

Pirate Enlightenment playfully dismantles the central myths of the Enlightenment. In their place comes a story about the magic, sea battles, purloined princesses, manhunts, make-believe kingdoms, fraudulent ambassadors, spies, jewel thieves, poisoners and devil worship that lie at the origins of modern freedom

Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia

David Graeber

Allen Lane

Supplied by Penguin Random House New Zealand

Reviewed by Stephen Litten

Everybody loves pirates, except those having their swashes unbuckled by buccaneers. And for awhile in the 18 the century Madagascar was home to many pirates. They were so successful that some toured Europe purporting to represent a Pirate kingdom, looking for allies and political connections (and places to fence their booty). One reputed “kingdom” was Libertalia, a utopia of direct democracy and socialist economics. Or so the stories go.

Dave Graeber has written a short book (or very long essay) on the only early European settler group on Madagascar: the pirates. He compares the successful pirates (there were unsuccessful pirate colonies) with the unsuccessful European colonies, as well as other outsider groups in Malagasy society.
He looks at the pirates from both a European and Malagasy perspective, how local women escaped from male control, and the rise of a particular tribal culture on Madagascar’s east coast.  And somewhere in all this is discussion of Libertalia and its real life analogue.

For a book of less than 200 pages, and only about 150 pages of essay (there’s a large preface and footnotes and references and such like), there’s a lot here. For example, the wealth available to successful pirates in the Indian Ocean vastly exceeded that of the Caribbean, and it was easier to avoid colonial navies.

I like this book and this author. I mean, how can you lose with Bullshit Jobs: A Theory? I recommend  this to anyone interested in the Enlightenment, pirates, and social development. Thanks to Jerome Buckleigh for supplying the English translation of Pirate Enlightenment.

Review of Listen To Me – Tess Gerritsen

The murder of Sofia Suarez is both gruesome and seemingly senseless. Why would anyone target a respected nurse who was well-liked by her friends and her neighbours? As Detective Jane Rizzoli and Forensic Pathologist Maura Isles investigate the baffling case, they discover that Sofia was guarding a dangerous secret — a secret that may have led the killer straight to her door.

Meanwhile, Jane’s watchful mother Angela Rizzoli is conducting an investigation of her own. She may be a grandmother, not a police detective, but she’s savvy enough t0o know there’s something very strange, perhaps even dangerous, about the new neighbours across the street. The problem is, no one believes her, not even her own daughter

Immersed in the hunt for Sofia’s killer, Jane and Maura are too busy to pay attention to Angela’s fears. With no one listening to her, and danger mounting in her neighbourhood, Angela just may be forced to take action on her own…

Listen To Me

Tess Gerritsen

Bantam Press

Supplied by Penguin Random House New Zealand

Reviewed by Jan Butterworth

Detective Jane Rizzoli and Forensic Pathologist Maura Isles are called to a crime scene where the victim had been stabbed repeatedly as she desperately tried to escape her killer.  The grisly murder is especially shocking as it seems so senseless.  The victim, Sofia Suarez is, was a respected nurse well-liked by her friends and neighbours.  As Jane looks deeper, she finds Sofia was investigating someone for something.  Did she get too close to someone’s secret?

Angela Rizzoli is suspicious about her neighbour’s missing daughter, suspecting something more sinister than a normal teenage runaway has happened, and she wants Jane to investigate.   Jane keeps brushing her off, as do the police, but she keeps investigating in the hope of finding the girl.  She keeps a close eye on the neighbourhood and is convinced that there is something suspicious about the new neighbours across the street. No one believes her though, dismissing her as a nosy old woman who sees shadows everywhere.  Jane and Maura are too busy looking for Sofia’s killer to pay attention to Angela, so she takes matters into her own hands.

College student Amy Antrim was nearly killed by a hit-and-run driver, and now uses a cane to walk. Several months later, she is at the funeral of Sofia Suarez, a nurse her doctor father worked with. A man approaches her and strikes up a conversation before vanishing.  After strange noises and unexplained break-ins at her house, Amy then feels she’s being followed.  Is someone stalking her?

These three threads are told in separate chapters and seem independent of each other at first.  As the plot moves briskly on, they gradually weave together and establish the connection between Sofia’s murder and Amy’s hit-and-run.  The plot is very clever and ties everything together neatly, with some things becoming obvious partway through the book.  I did not expect the last piece of information though.

Yay!  More Rizzoli & Isles!  This book is an addictive read and definitely one for thriller fans.