The Dawn of Everything
By David Graeber & David Wengrow
- Release Date: 2021-11-09
- Genre: Anthropology
Description
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution—from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequality—and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation.
For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike—either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and David Wengrow show how such theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a conservative reaction to powerful critiques of European society posed by Indigenous observers and intellectuals. Revisiting this encounter has startling implications for how we make sense of human history today, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself.
Drawing on pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive what’s really there. If humans did not spend 95 percent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they doing all that time? If agriculture, and cities, did not mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of human history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful, hopeful possibilities, than we tend to assume.
The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision, and a faith in the power of direct action.
Includes Black-and-White Illustrations
Reviews
Truly Inspiring
5By unsynced lfoOne of the most inspiring and life-affirming nonfiction books I’ve ever read.Fantastic
5By alice-luciaThis was fun to read.Really bad, sorry I bought it
1By whv14It was like I was getting yelled at.Important book
5By mimshowThe two Davids provide us with an overview of human existence that shows us to be much more creative and politically conscious than most social science has ever imagined. They provide questions rather than insist on the correctness of certain approaches to finding answers.Does Not Deliver
2By NeychamanThis book is thought-provoking, but unclear, disorganized, and unconvincing. As someone who loves big history, I am so disappointed.Thought provoking and tedious
4By Michael GraybeardA thought provoking book, but not easy to read. But if you are interested in history or how social systems are organized, I would recommend it. Pros: Lots of intriguing examples of prehistory and anthropology that I had never heard of. Especially striking to me: monumental constructions by apparent hunter-gatherer societies, large cities with little to no evidence of societal stratification or central rule, slave-holding indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest, societies that seasonally alternate between harsh, centralized rule from above and egalitarian, peaceful, and cooperative arrangements for the rest of the year. There are also intriguing ideas about how accepted patterns of historical change are probably wrong and that enlightenment values of liberty may actually have their origin in the political thinking of indigenous peoples in North America, originating in response to the overthrow of a violent, authoritarian culture in the Southeast of what is now the US. Cons: Hard to tell at times where established fact ends and speculation starts and if some speculation turns into pure fantasy. There is a lot of inference of the motivations of pre-historic people that strikes me as very creative. Some of the criticism of the work of other authors came across as more of an academic feud than a dispassionate analysis of available evidence. Lots of dumping on the blinders and misconceptions other researchers have, and - at least in one case - an argument against another researcher’s ideas that relies on selective quotes and misrepresentation (and that in one of the few cases where I actually know enough to make an independent judgement). A general style that lays out the big, radical concepts first and then brings in evidence - which makes me concerned that the ideology came first and then evidence was gathered to support it. Nevertheless: Overall, my impression is very positive. This book made me think, and I learned a lot. I am inspired to go to different sources and follow up. I will likely reread this book at some point.
