The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

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 The authors rightfully take other scholars to task for making assumptions and clinging to outdated notions, yet they commit these same crimes over and over and over again.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.