The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
Ratings47
Average rating4.2
15
Ratings47
Average rating4.2
A trailblazing account of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution—from the development of agriculture and cities to the emergence of "the state," political violence, and social 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? What was really happening during the periods that we usually describe as the emergence of "the state"? 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 with the most likes.
A huge work of astonishing creativity that synthesizes fascinating work from the past 30 years of archeology and anthropology to pose massive questions about our understanding of human political history.
Definitely a major intellectual tour de force. Refreshingly different to the usual historical narratives, which however is not say it is 100% convincing at times.
I keep coming back to this book. It has changed my perspective more than any single thing in quite some time. The tone can be annoyingly smug at times, but look past that. There's a lot to learn here.
I have mixed feelings about the book.
Its major shortcoming (in my view) is that it is overly long and dull. There's just far too much information here, much of which seems to be extraneous to the authors' central thesis. Maybe it seems overly long because I listened to the audio version? I don't know. Whatever the case, there are entire chapters that feel more like digressions than support for the primary argument.
Also, the book is built upon mountains of supposition. “Surely, it must be the case...” “One cannot help but assume...” And so on. The authors rightfully take other scholars to task for making assumptions and clinging to outdated notions, yet they commit these same crimes over and over and over again.
These qualms aside, there's a lot of fascinating material here.
There are some interesting Big Ideas about the grand scope of history (which boil down, essentially, to the Vulcan ideal: “infinite diversity in infinite combinations” — that is, human societies have existed in myriad forms over the past 12,000+ years, and it is impossible to generalize a progression of systemic organization) but there are also plenty of entertaining and enlightening nuggets to be found in the anecdotes and digressions.
I'd probably consider this a must-read for others who are interested in human history and the origins of civilization. I'm glad I read it. But don't expect it to be nearly as entertaining or well-written as, say, “Sapiens”. The research in “THe Dawn of Everything” may be more rigorous than the former, but former is a pleasure to read while the latter is a drag.
