American Writers (One Hundred Pages at a Time)

For the next 10 episodes I will be reading Sven Beckert's Capitalism: A Global History, which covers the history of capitalism from its earliest origins to the present. It consolidates most of the findings in the recent "history of capitalism" trend in historical scholarship. I am very excited to begin this project. 

A pretty short episode capping off this rather long series on James Scott and others.

In this episode I look at The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Tsing. In this first half of the book we explore the human history of the matsutake mushroom. This great book will be the conclusion of this series that began with our look at The Moral Economy of the Peasant so many months ago. 

The finale of my review of The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrove. In this section we look at the origins (or non-origins) of the state and return to the indigenous critique of Europe.

Part 4 of my review of David Wengrove and David Graeber's The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. As we come to the close of this book we begin to go deeper into the Neolithic and explore urban forms and political systems, asking the question if anything has an origin and if not, how can we tell the story of early humanity?

Part three of my review of David Graeber and David Wengrove's massive book The Dawn of Everything. In this section we focus on the origins of agriculture and communities and hierarchies. 

Hey guys. Back with another section of my review of The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrove. In this section I focus on his chapters on the origins of agriculture, the sections that have the most to contrast with James Scott's Against the Grain.

As a follow up to James C. Scott's Against the Grain I wanted to look into the more comprehensive and perhaps more radical and challenging interpretation give in The Dawn of Everything by David Wengrove and David Graeber. Here is the first of five parts. 

Part two and the conclusion of my review of Race Rebels by Robin Kelley. In this second half of the book, we explore the infrapolitics that inspired mid to later 20th century black politics especially black communism and internationalism, and the politics of rap music. 

In this episode I look at Robin Kelley's wonderful exploration of black politics in the 20th century Race Rebels. It is the best example that I know of an author using James C. Scott's theory of "infrapolitics". The result of a fascinating account of politics from "way, way below".