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The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World

Brief Description
Drawn from more than two decades of pathbreaking writing, the iconic and bestselling David Graeber's most important essays and interviews 'The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently,' wrote David Graeber, as... Read More
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Drawn from more than two decades of pathbreaking writing, the iconic and bestselling David Graeber's most important essays and interviews 'The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently,' wrote David Graeber, as well-known for his sharp, lively essays as he was for his iconic role in the Occupy movement and his paradigm-shifting tomes. There are converging political, economic, and ecological crises, and yet our politics is dominated by either business as usual or nostalgia for a mythical past. Thinking against the grain, Graeber was one of the few who dared to imagine a new understanding of the past and a liberatory vision of the future - to imagine a social order based on humans' fundamental freedom. In essays published over three decades and ranging across the biggest issues of our time - inequality, technology, the identity of 'the West,' democracy, art, power, anger, mutual aid, and protest - he challenges the old assumptions about political life. A trenchant critic of the order of things, and driven by a bold imagination and a passionate commitment to human freedom, he offers hope that our world can be different. During a moment of daunting upheaval and pervasive despair, the incisive, entertaining, and urgent essays collected in The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World . . . , edited and with an introduction by Nika Dubrovksy and with a foreword by Rebecca Solnit, make for essential and inspiring reading. They are a profound reminder of Graeber's enduring significance as an iconic, playful, necessary thinker.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781802061604

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 06 November 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Penguin

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 24.0mm

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 284g

Pages: 384

About the Author

David Graeber was a professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics. He is the author of, among others, The Dawn of Everything- A New History of Humanity, Debt- The First 5,000 Years, Bullshit Jobs- A Theory, and Pirate Enlightenment, and was a contributor to Harper's Magazine, the Guardian, and the Baffler. An iconic thinker and renowned activist, his early efforts helped to make Occupy Wall Street an era-defining movement. He died on 2 September 2020.

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