David Graeber
Anthropologist and anarchist activist
David Graeber was an American anthropologist and activist who wrote Debt: The First 5,000 Years and The Dawn of Everything.
1 summary 23 min of listening
Born 1961 in New York City, United States Died 2020
About David Graeber
David Graeber was born in New York City in 1961 and studied at Purchase College and the University of Chicago. He carried out research in Madagascar and earned his doctorate in 1996. He taught anthropology at Yale University, then at Goldsmiths, University of London, and later at the London School of Economics. He died in September 2020. His work covered theories of value, social hierarchy and political power. He wrote Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), which explores how debt and social institutions have been linked through history, and Bullshit Jobs (2018), which grew out of a 2013 essay on pointless paid work. The Dawn of Everything was published in 2021, after his death. Graeber was also an activist. He took part in the global justice protests of the early 2000s and was one of the leading figures of Occupy Wall Street in 2011. He is credited with coining the slogan "We are the 99%".