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Interesting. Makes me want to actually read Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens. I watched the GG&S documentary & enjoyed it, but I should read the book. What s

Interesting. Makes me want to actually read Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens. I watched the GG&S documentary & enjoyed it, but I should read the book. What single book of Graeber should I read that has his most important ideas? Is it this one?

SaberTail 5y ago
I'd recommend Debt. It made me rethink a lot of what I "knew" about money and economics. Bullshit Jobs is also interesting, but it's a much lighter, much more "pop" book. I haven't read this one yet to know if it's on the same level as Debt, but the reviews so far have suggested it is.
- thundergolfer 5y ago
  Debt is incredible, and I don't use that work lightly. For me I came away not with answers, but feeling like I could for the first time actually think about its big issues (money, economics, morality, community).
  - f0e4c2f7 5y ago
    I enjoy Graeber's work including Debt: a 5000 year history, but I know that feeling you mean of the book leaving you with more questions than answers. If you haven't read it you might enjoy Capital in the 21st Century by Thomas Piketty as an interesting follow up to it.
    - thundergolfer 5y ago
      I've got a copy of that one, but I find it's a more intimidating and taxing read than Debt. I do mean to get through it though.
diego_moita 5y ago
> What single book of Graeber should I read that has his most important ideas? Is it this one? I read both Diamond's and Harari's and am reading this one. All three are very, very good. Graeber makes heavy criticism of Harari and Diamond, but I found his criticism to be marginal. He really doesn't touch the core of those 2 books.
vishnugupta 5y ago
+1 to the Debt book. It changed my fundamental thought process and I consider the book to be more of a framework. For example; I now realize how natural it was for my mother to constantly exchange groceries and food with our neighbors and how formally keeping track of them was considered to be a bad thing. Or how we deliberate and take time while gifting someone we know (e.g on their marriage), we gift them in kind. Where as it’s totally OK to gift money in envelopes in Indian marriages if you don’t know the bride/groom that well but got invited to the marriage anyway through some distant relatives. Money here kind of takes away the personal touch, like you have to fulfill a gifting obligation but don’t care much about it because you don’t know the marrying couple. I could go on for a while because I re-read different parts of the book once every month :-) It’s difficult to put into words how good it is in terms of the wide range of space-time it covers and the depth of the discourse. It’s like climbing a mountain several times from different paths, some of which are deliberately dead end just to present an alternative view point and why it’s not good enough. The bibliography could be made into a book of its own.

SaberTail 5y ago

I'd recommend Debt. It made me rethink a lot of what I "knew" about money and economics. Bullshit Jobs is also interesting, but it's a much lighter, much more "pop" book. I haven't read this one yet to know if it's on the same level as Debt, but the reviews so far have suggested it is.

thundergolfer 5y ago
Debt is incredible, and I don't use that work lightly. For me I came away not with answers, but feeling like I could for the first time actually think about its big issues (money, economics, morality, community).
- f0e4c2f7 5y ago
  I enjoy Graeber's work including Debt: a 5000 year history, but I know that feeling you mean of the book leaving you with more questions than answers. If you haven't read it you might enjoy Capital in the 21st Century by Thomas Piketty as an interesting follow up to it.
  - thundergolfer 5y ago
    I've got a copy of that one, but I find it's a more intimidating and taxing read than Debt. I do mean to get through it though.

diego_moita 5y ago

> What single book of Graeber should I read that has his most important ideas? Is it this one? I read both Diamond's and Harari's and am reading this one. All three are very, very good. Graeber makes heavy criticism of Harari and Diamond, but I found his criticism to be marginal. He really doesn't touch the core of those 2 books.

vishnugupta 5y ago

+1 to the Debt book. It changed my fundamental thought process and I consider the book to be more of a framework. For example; I now realize how natural it was for my mother to constantly exchange groceries and food with our neighbors and how formally keeping track of them was considered to be a bad thing. Or how we deliberate and take time while gifting someone we know (e.g on their marriage), we gift them in kind. Where as it’s totally OK to gift money in envelopes in Indian marriages if you don’t know the bride/groom that well but got invited to the marriage anyway through some distant relatives. Money here kind of takes away the personal touch, like you have to fulfill a gifting obligation but don’t care much about it because you don’t know the marrying couple. I could go on for a while because I re-read different parts of the book once every month :-) It’s difficult to put into words how good it is in terms of the wide range of space-time it covers and the depth of the discourse. It’s like climbing a mountain several times from different paths, some of which are deliberately dead end just to present an alternative view point and why it’s not good enough. The bibliography could be made into a book of its own.