The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World

Drawn from more than two decades of pathbreaking writing, the iconic and bestselling David Graeber's most important essays and interviews.

'David Graeber has always been an inspiration to me. Reading him fills me with both hope and joy... The tools he has shared to help all of us deconstruct the current reality we inhabit are invaluable. The more people that we can reach the more chance of a reimagined world is possible'- Clive Lewis MP

‘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. This new collection brings together the renowned anthropologist, author and activist’s most visionary essays, showing him imagining a new understanding of the past – and a future based on humans' fundamental freedom.

Drawn from more than two decades of pathbreaking writing, and ranging across the biggest issues of our time – inequality, technology, the identity of ‘the West,’ democracy, art, power, anger, mutual aid and protest – Graeber’s essays challenge the old assumptions about political life. Despite converging political, economic, and ecological crises, our politics is still dominated by either ‘business as usual’ or nostalgia for a mythical past. Instead, Graeber shows himself to be a trenchant critic of the order of things, driven by a bold imagination and a passionate hope that our world can be different.

The incisive, entertaining and urgent essays collected in The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World make for essential reading. They are a profound reminder of Graeber's enduring significance as an inspiring and necessary thinker.

Review

David Graeber has always been an inspiration to me. Reading him fills me with both hope and joy... The tools he has shared to help all of us deconstruct the current reality we inhabit are invaluable. The more people that we can reach the more chance of a reimagined world is possible ― Clive Lewis MP

Ambitious and erudite essays... An ideal entry point to new readers... for those returning to his ideas, the pleasure is in the writing, filled as it is with historical heft, global prescience, and a vast breadth of reference by the seemingly omniscient author... Graeber’s essays remain intense flares of thought lighting a path towards something better than “the best of all possible worlds”, which is a place where we all too readily resign ourselves -- NJ McGarrigle ― Irish Times

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.