A review by john_rileys_ghost
Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation by Silvia Federici

3.0

Despite being a necessary intervention in a Marxist history of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, there are some glaring vacancies in Federici's accounting. Homosexuality & queerness is referenced hardly at all, and the gender-essentialism is rather loud (there are only men and women in Federici's history of gender & sexuality under the emergence of capitalism). The uses of studies of witchcraft and its persecution in Latin America feel out of place as well, as Federici imposes her view of a binary gender on the cases she cites, as well as using only Mexico & Peru to stand in for all of Latin America (she also says Mexico is in South America twice...). Rather than trace a global history of witchcraft, or even a comparative history of witchcraft during the age of colonialism in the Americas, Federici seems to use Latin American samples as a way to continue a Eurocentric discussion of witchcraft.

In the end, an interesting and necessary feminist intervention in Marxist history, but there has got to be better material out there for readers in 2023 and beyond...