
Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia, by David Graeber, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 208 pages, $27
Value is established on the margins. That is a central insight of both Austrian and neoclassical economics, but it is useful in thinking about history as well. Consider the ostracized, marginalized pirates who settled in 18th century Madagascar, married local women, and birthed one of the lost wellsprings of the Enlightenment.