The Dawn of Everything
David Graeber was an anthropology professor at the London School of Economics. He is the author of many books, including Debt: The First 5,000 Years and Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, and the co-author of the New York Times bestseller The Dawn of Everything with David Wengrow. His early activities in Zuccotti Park helped to establish Occupy Wall Street as an era-defining movement. He passed away on September 2, 2020.
David Wengrow is a comparative archaeology professor at University College London's Institute of Archaeology and a visiting professor at New York University. He has written several works, including What Causes Civilization? Wengrow has conducted archaeological investigations in Africa and the Middle East.
For years, our distant forefathers have been portrayed as unsophisticated and infantile, either as free and equal innocents or as thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, can only be attained by either relinquishing those fundamental liberties or taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and David Wengrow demonstrate how, in the eighteenth century, such beliefs evolved as a conservative reaction to forceful critiques of European civilization given by Indigenous observers and intellectuals. This interaction has far-reaching ramifications for how we understand human history today, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself.
Drawing on groundbreaking archaeology and anthropology studies, the authors demonstrate how history becomes a considerably more exciting place once we learn to let go of our conceptual shackles and recognize what is truly there. What were humans doing all that time if they didn't spend 95 percent of their evolutionary history in small bands of hunter-gatherers? If agriculture and cities did not result in a fall into hierarchy and dominance, what types of social and economic organization did they produce? The replies are frequently unexpected, implying that the course of human history may be less predetermined and more full of playful, hopeful possibilities than we commonly believe.
The Dawn of Everything significantly alters our understanding of human history and opens the door to conceptualizing new types of liberty and new ways of organizing society. This is a massive book with a great intellectual breadth, propelled by curiosity, moral vision, and belief in the potential of direct action.
Author: David Graeber and David Wengrow
Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Everything-New-History-Humanity/dp/0374157359/
Ratings: 4.5 out of 5 stars (from 3451 reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #756 in Books
#2 in Slavery & Emancipation History
#3 in History of Civilization & Culture
#4 in Evolution (Books)
