
The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World . . .
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Narrated by:
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Jacques Servin
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Savitri D
About this listen
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. A renowned anthropologist, activist, and author of such classic books as Debt and the breakout New York Times bestseller The Dawn of Everything (with David Wengrow), Graeber was 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 Dubrovsky and with a foreword by Rebecca Solnit, make for essential and inspiring listening. They are a profound reminder of Graeber’s enduring significance as an iconic, playful, necessary thinker.
©2024 David Graeber and Nika Dubrovsky (P)2024 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
Confrontations between the powerless and powerful are laden with deception—the powerless feign deference and the powerful subtly assert their mastery. Peasants, serfs, untouchables, slaves, laborers, and prisoners are not free to speak their minds in the presence of power. These subordinate groups instead create a secret discourse that represents a critique of power spoken behind the backs of the dominant. At the same time, the powerful also develop a private dialogue about practices and goals of their rule that cannot be openly avowed.
By: James C. Scott
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Postcapitalist Desire
- The Final Lectures
- By: Mark Fisher
- Narrated by: Tom Lawrence
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Beginning with that most fundamental of questions - ''Do we really want what we say we want?'' - Fisher explores the relationship between desire and capitalism, and wonders what new forms of desire we might still excavate from the past, present, and future. From the emergence and failure of the counterculture in the 1970s to the continued development of his left-accelerationist line of thinking, this volume charts a tragically interrupted course for thinking about the raising of a new kind of consciousness, and the cultural and political implications of doing so.
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Amazing ideas from a man who was too brilliant
- By Jim on 08-11-21
By: Mark Fisher
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How Will Capitalism End?
- Essays on a Failing System
- By: Wolfgang Streeck
- Narrated by: David Skulski
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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After years of ill health, capitalism is now in a critical condition. Growth has given way to stagnation; inequality is leading to instability; and confidence in the money economy has all but evaporated. In How Will Capitalism End?, the acclaimed analyst of contemporary politics and economics Wolfgang Streeck argues the world is about to change.
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Thorough but this is a bit dry
- By We on 08-16-22
By: Wolfgang Streeck
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Bad Samaritans
- The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism
- By: Ha-Joon Chang
- Narrated by: Jim Bond
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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With irreverent wit, an engagingly personal style, and a battery of real-life examples, Ha-Joon Chang blasts holes in the "World Is Flat" orthodoxy of Thomas Friedman and other neo-liberal economists who argue that only unfettered capitalism and wide-open international trade can lift struggling nations out of poverty.
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Not Convinced!
- By Oldtimer on 11-20-08
By: Ha-Joon Chang
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The Order of Things
- An Archaeology of the Human Sciences
- By: Michel Foucault
- Narrated by: James Gillies
- Length: 22 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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With vast erudition, Foucault cuts across disciplines and reaches back into seventeenth century to show how classical systems of knowledge, which linked all of nature within a great chain of being and analogies between the stars in the heavens and the features in a human face, gave way to the modern sciences of biology, philology, and political economy. The result is nothing less than an archaeology of the sciences that unearths old patterns of meaning and reveals the shocking arbitrariness of our received truths.
By: Michel Foucault
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Invisible Doctrine
- The Secret History of Neoliberalism
- By: George Monbiot, Peter Hutchison
- Narrated by: George Monbiot
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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In Invisible Doctrine, journalist George Monbiot and filmmaker Peter Hutchison shatter this myth. They show how a fringe philosophy in the 1930s—championing competition as the defining feature of humankind—was systematically hijacked by a group of wealthy elites, determined to guard their fortunes and power.
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Important Information
- By Rachel Burnside on 03-12-25
By: George Monbiot, and others
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The King in Orange
- The Magical and Occult Roots of Political Power
- By: John Michael Greer
- Narrated by: Miguel Conner
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Magic and politics seem like unlikely bedfellows, but in The King in Orange, author John Michael Greer goes beyond superficial memes and extreme partisanship to reveal the unmentionable realities that spawned the unexpected presidential victory of an elderly real-estate mogul turned reality-TV star and which continue to drive the deepening divide that is now the defining characteristic of American society.
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Don't waste your time or money on this reading
- By Alex G on 09-20-21
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The Invention of Scarcity
- Malthus and the Margins of History (Yale Agrarian Studies Series)
- By: Deborah Valenze
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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With the publication of Essay on the Principle of Population and its projection of food shortages in the face of ballooning populations, British theorist Thomas Robert Malthus secured a leading role in modern political and economic thought. In this startling new interpretation, Deborah Valenze reveals how canonical readings of Malthus fail to acknowledge his narrow understanding of what constitutes food production.
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Very insightful!
- By Consumer Expert! on 07-21-23
By: Deborah Valenze
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Necropolitics
- By: Achille Mbembe, Steven Corcoran - translator
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In Necropolitics, Achille Mbembe, a leader in the new wave of francophone critical theory, theorizes the genealogy of the contemporary world, a world plagued by ever-increasing inequality, militarization, enmity, and terror as well as by a resurgence of racist, fascist, and nationalist forces determined to exclude and kill. He outlines how democracy has begun to embrace its dark side - what he calls its "nocturnal body" - which is based on the desires, fears, affects, relations, and violence that drove colonialism.
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Forget critical race theory
- By Ian on 01-08-23
By: Achille Mbembe, and others
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The Myth of American Idealism
- How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World
- By: Noam Chomsky, Nathan J. Robinson
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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From one of the world’s most prominent thinkers, an urgent warning of the threat that U.S. power poses to humanity’s future as well as a sharp indictment of both American foreign policy and the national myths that support it.
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Absolutely spot on except . . .
- By anthony pape on 11-09-24
By: Noam Chomsky, and others
What listeners say about The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World . . .
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Danielle Valdez
- 05-05-25
Hilarious and thought provoking
A brilliant and hysterical challenge to our indoctrination and assumptions. A brutal critique of capitalism and supremacy. A life affirming celebration of humanity. I love this so much
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- carsonwelker
- 01-13-25
You know you’ll like this
If you’re looking at this book it means you know Graeber already which means you’ll love this.
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- zoia krioukova
- 01-28-25
An important read
The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the Universe? We create it! A fun and engaging series of essays.
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1 person found this helpful