Pirates of Madagascar

Published on: April 5 / 2023

The LRB Podcast with Francis Gooding and Thomas Jones


Francis Gooding joins Tom to discuss Pirate Enlightenment, David Graeber’s posthumously published study of 17th- and 18th-century piracy. Golden Age pirates maintained surprisingly egalitarian working practices, Graeber argues, and legendary pirate republics may have been run on similar grounds. Tom and Francis talk about Graeber’s Madagascar-centred research, sift through myth and fact, and ask: was piracy a bullshit job?

Listen to the podcast on the London Review of Books website

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