'A groundbreaking work . . . Federici has become a crucial figure for . . . a new generation of
feminists' Rachel Kushner author of The Mars Room A cult classic since its publication in
the early years of this century Caliban and the Witch is Silvia Federici's history of the body
in the transition to capitalism. Moving from the peasant revolts of the late Middle Ages
through the European witch-hunts the rise of scientific rationalism and the colonisation of
the Americas it gives a panoramic account of the often horrific violence with which the unruly
human material of pre-capitalist societies was transformed into a set of predictable and
controllable mechanisms. It Is a study of indigenous traditions crushed of the enclosure of
women's reproductive powers within the nuclear family and of how our modern world was forged
in blood. 'Rewarding . . . allows us to better understand the intimate relationship between
modern patriarchy the rise of the nation state and the transition from feudalism to
capitalism' Guardian
