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I get a little skeptical when an article about a book says "don't bother reading this book" and then goes on to make a lot of claims about it. There aren't even
by karaterobot 2y ago
I get a little skeptical when an article about a book says "don't bother reading this book" and then goes on to make a lot of claims about it. There aren't even any quotes from the text. I haven't read Graeber's book, but I just don't like the "trust me to have done the thinking about this topic for you" approach.
- ToucanLoucan 2y agoIt's genuinely one of my favorite books I've read. He has a very plain, straight-forward and matter-of-fact writing style. It reads like an informal, incredibly long but well researched and interesting blog post. His book Debt: The First 5,000 Years is a little denser and more academic but also excellent. He might be one of my favorite authors of all time, which makes it all the sadder that I missed a chance to meet him before he died.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- wrs 2y agoI love this attitude in theory. It would ironically put a lot of writers out of a job, though, if you required their audience to read the primary source before reading their thoughts about it. I mean, the ratio of people reading opinions about Piketty to people actually reading Piketty must have been a million to one.
- karaterobot 2y agoYeah, that wouldn't be feasible. But I'd be satisfied if they just included direct quotations rather than saying someone said something. The difference is that I can pretty easily track down the quote and the context around it if I have a string to include in a search, plus it's at least some defense against the reviewer just making things up out of whole cloth, or even just giving a less generous reading of something others might read differently. I'm not saying that happened here, I'm just saying that's the danger.