The Dawn of Everything

A New History of Humanity

The Guardian For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike – either free and equal 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 reaction to indigenous critiques of European society and why they are wrong.

They overturn our view of human history, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself.

Drawing on path-breaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we begin to see what’s really there. If humans did not spend 95 per cent 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, what social and economic organization did they lead to?

The answers are often unexpected, suggesting that history may be less set in stone and more full of playful possibilities than we assume.

The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom and new ways of organizing society. This monumental book of formidable intellectual range is animated by curiosity, moral vision, and faith in the power of direct action.

Bibliography

Graeber, D. and Wengrow, D. (2022) The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. London: Penguin Books.

Reviews

‘This is not a book. This is an intellectual feast.’ –Nassim Nicholas Taleb

‘The most profound and exciting book I’ve read in thirty years.’ — Robin D. G. Kelley

‘A fascinating inquiry, which leads us to rethink the nature of human capacities, as well as the proudest moments of our own history, and our interactions with and indebtedness to the cultures and forgotten intellectuals of indigenous societies. Challenging and illuminating.’ — Noam Chomsky

Website David Graeber