Caliban and the Witch

[Dave Monroe]

"Caliban and the Witch" is Silvia Federici's
long-anticipated history of witches and women's bodies
in the historical transition from feudalism to
capitalism. "Caliban" is based in feminist scholarship
analyzing the essential role of reproductive labor in 
producing and maintaining accumulated capital
(specifically Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Selma James, and
the Wages for Housework Movement), but asks the
overlooked question, why were hundreds of thousands of

"witches" executed in the transition to capitalism?
What were the specific historical circumstances under
which this persecution happened, and how did it enable
the rise of capitalism?

Silvia takes on the task of answering these questions
through rigorous analysis of demographic and economic
documents of the day, carefully examining contemporary
land and labor policies, and illustrates her work with
dozens of images from the period. By studying and
identifying women's reproductive lives as a contested 
site and thus a place of resistance, the history
presented in this book is an essential tool in
conceiving alternatives to capitalism.

285 pp, $15.95, http://www.autonomedia.org/caliban

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