Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia

“Pirate Enlightenment” is a documentary-adventure novel about the radical political experiments of pirates in Madagascar in the 17th–18th centuries. The author, David Graeber, sets out to bring anthropology and ethnography back to the study of the development of culture and society. He criticizes the Eurocentric approach to civilization, arguing that the origins of liberal and democratic ideas lie outside “Western civilization.” Graeber proposes a new perspective on the origin of the Enlightenment Era, suggesting that it may have begun aboard a pirate ship—and that the invented “pirate kingdoms” actually existed. The author reveals the history of these communities, their experiments with self-governance and social order, and the phenomenal facts that underpin modern democratic principles and freedom.