The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow

For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike—either noble savages living in perfect equality or brutal thugs governed by base instinct. We have been told that civilization could only be achieved by sacrificing those original freedoms, or alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. But David Graeber and David Wengrow show how these theories, which have shaped our understanding of human history for nearly three centuries, first emerged in the eighteenth century as a reaction to indigenous critiques of European society—and why they are fundamentally wrong.

Drawing on path-breaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors overturn our view of human history itself, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery and civilization. If humans did not spend 95 per cent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they actually doing all that time? If agriculture and cities did not inevitably mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, what kinds of social and economic organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, suggesting that the course of history may be less set in stone and far more full of playful 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 and new ways of organizing society. A monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision and faith in the power of direct action.

"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 New York Times Bestseller and Sunday Times, Observer and BBC History Book of the Year. Finalist for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2022.

Publisher: Penguin Books

Date Published: 02/06/2022

ISBN: 9780141991061

Number of pages: 692

Binding:

• Paperback

Book genres:

• History
• Philosophy

Target audience:

• Adults