The figure of the devil occupies a fascinating place in European history and a far from obvious position in the transition from feudalism to the first forms of capitalist production, as shown by the sinister chapters of the persecution of witches and the eradication of the peasant community cultures of pre-Christian basis. In this classic book, Michael Taussig observes a similar trajectory in the imposition of capitalist forms of production among the agrarian communities of Latin America, while immersing us in the social meaning of the devil in the folklore of Bolivian miners and workers. of the Cauca Valley in Colombia. All this within the framework of a historical evolution that ranges from the Spanish conquest and slave labor on plantations to modern mining and agribusiness.

Starting from an original use of certain Marxist categories, Taussig shows us how the fetishism of the devil mediates the conflict between capitalist and pre-capitalist ways of objectifying the human condition. He teaches us how the narratives of the pact with the devil, in which the soul is seized by a temporary and illusory power, are linked to the alienation and estrangement of workers from the goods they produce in the capitalist mode of production. And at the same time, he gives us a completely denatured image of the particular fetishism of our capitalist society, according to which merchandise and money come to have a life of their own independently of the action and will of human actors.

This edition is accompanied by an extensive epilogue by the author on the value of his work thirty years after its publication. Taussig thus values ​​some of his original ingenuousness, while at the same time, hand in hand with Benjamin and Bataille, he offers us a new light on the contents of the metaphor of the pact with the devil.