Betafo, a rural community in central Madagascar, is divided between descendants of nobles and descendants of slaves. Anthropologist David Graeber uncovers the layers of historical, social, and cultural knowledge required to understand a disastrous communal ordeal and elaborates a new view of power, inequality, and the political role of narrative.

ContentsPreface and AcknowledgmentsNotes on Malagasy Pronunciation1. Betafo, 19902. Royal Authority3. Negative Authority4. Character5. A Brief History of Betafo6. Anti-Heroic Politics7. The Trials of Miadana8. Lost People9. The Descendants of Rainitamaina10. It Must Have Gone Something Like This11. Catastrophe12. EpilogueGlossary of Malagasy TermsPersonal Names in TextImportant Places Named in TextNotesBibliographyIndex

This compelling ethnography matches Bakhtinian dialogism with Dostoevskian detail. The book is 'full of characters: both in the sense of eccentrics and oddballs, and . . . of protagonists of stories . . . about the edges between politics and history,' where assumptions are negotiated and 'new things can emerge.' Madagascar's blend of African and Pacific cultures and histories is highly unusual, and innovative tactics are needed to capture and convey its singularities. Dark Dostoevskian portrayals prove apposite to understanding people who do 'not see anything particularly shameful about fear' in both religious and political realms. Highly articulated social stratification meant that aristocrats and slaves cohabited precolonial places and periods. With French conquest and subsequent abolition, these categories shifted rather than disappeared as elites managed their newfound sharecroppers. Graeber (Goldsmiths, Univ. of London) is a masterful narrator, allowing contradictions in people's accounts to be what they are—different takes on given circumstances—as he brokers more speculative hypotheses and historical understandings about the nature of society. A humanistic sense of flow results, as Graeber talks with and about people while shedding light on the paradoxically 'perverse, extreme scientism' of postmodernist quests for 'real knowledge.' Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

The political intrigue makes for a compelling narrative. Committed to showing the power of stories, Graeber is very capable of telling a story of his own. . . . a brilliant study in the classic anthropological tradition. . . .