The Dawn of Everything

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The Dawn of Everything
The Dawn of Everything.jpg
AuthorDavid Graeber &
David Wengrow
SubjectHuman history
PublisherAllen Lane
Publication date
October 19, 2021 (2021-10-19)
Pages704
ISBN978-0-241-40242-9
Websitehttps://dawnofeverything.industries

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity is a 2021 book by anthropologist David Graeber and archaeologist David Wengrow. It was first published in the United Kingdom on 19 October 2021 by Allen Lane (an imprint of Penguin Books).[1]

Drawing attention to the diversity of early human societies, it critiques traditional narratives of history's linear development from primitivism to civilization.[2] Instead, The Dawn of Everything posits that humans lived in large, complex, but decentralized polities for millennia.[3] It relies on archaeological evidence to show that early societies were diverse and developed numerous political structures.[4]

Graeber and Wengrow finished the book around August 2020.[4] Its American edition is 704 pages long, including a 63-page bibliography.[4]

Reception[]

The book was an instant bestseller, entering The New York Times best-seller list at No. 2 for the week of November 28, 2021,[5] while its German translation entered Der Spiegel Bestseller list at No.1.[6] It was named a Sunday Times, Observer and BBC History Book of the Year.[7]

Gideon Lewis-Kraus said in The New Yorker that the book “aspires to enlarge our political imagination by revitalizing the possibilities of the distant past”.[8] In The Atlantic, William Deresiewicz described the book as “brilliant” and “inspiring”, stating that it ”upends bedrock assumptions about 30,000 years of change.”[9] Historian of science, Emily Kern, writing in the Boston Review, called the book “erudite” and “funny”, suggesting that “once you start thinking like Graeber and Wengrow, it’s difficult to stop.“[10] The anthropologist, Giulio Ongaro, stated in Jacobin and Tribune that “Graeber and Wengrow do to human history what [Galileo and Darwin] did to astronomy and biology respectively”.[11][12]

While wondering whether a book that “hypothesizes confidently in the face of scant or confusing evidence, can be trusted”, historian Daniel Immerwahr described the book as “a work of dizzying ambition”.[13] Andrew Anthony accused the authors of "cherrypicking" but also said the authors persuasively replace "the idea of humanity being forced along through evolutionary stages with a picture of prehistoric communities making their own conscious decisions of how to live".[14] Historian David Priestland argued in The Guardian that Peter Kropotkin had more powerfully addressed the sorts of questions that a persuasive case for modern-day anarchism should address. However, Priestland also lauded the authors' historical "myth-busting" and called it "an exhilarating read".[15] Anarchist author Gabriel Kuhn called the book "the most disappointing read of my life", suggesting it didn't live up to its claims and was politically ambiguous.[16] By contrast, Bryan Appleyard in his review for The Sunday Times called the book "pacey and potentially revolutionary."[17]

Anthropologist Chris Knight called The Dawn of Everything "incoherent and wrong" for beginning "far too late" and "systematically side-stepping the cultural flowering that began in Africa tens of thousands of years before Homo sapiens arrived in Europe”.[18] However, he also pointed out that the book's "one important point" was "its advocacy of [political] oscillation".[19] Anthropologist James Suzman in the Literary Review claimed that the book doesn't “engage with the vast historical and academic literature on recent African ... small scale hunter-gatherers”, but also maintained that the book "consistently thought-provoking" in "forcing us to re-examine some of the cosy assumptions about our deep past".[20] Writing for the New York Journal of Books, another anthropologist, James H. McDonald, noted the omission of classic work by anthropologist Edmund Leach (1954) on the gumlau and gumsa systems of socio-political organization found among the mountain Kachin, but also noted that The Dawn of Everything “may well prove to be the most important book of the decade, for it explodes deeply held myths about the inevitability of our social lives dominated by the state”.[21]

Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah argued in The New York Review of Books that there is a “discordance between what the book says and what its sources say," while also stating that the book, which is “chockablock with archaeological and ethnographic minutiae, is an oddly gripping read”.[22] NYRB subsequently published an extended exchange between Wengrow and Appiah under the title "The Roots of Inequality" in which Wengrow expanded on the book's use of archaeological sources, while Appiah concluded that "Graeber and Wengrow’s argument against historical determinism—against the alluring notion that what happened had to have happened—is itself immensely valuable."[23]

The historian David A. Bell, responding solely to Graeber and Wengrow's argument about the Indigenous origins of Enlightenment thought, accused the authors of coming "perilously close to scholarly malpractice."[24] By contrast, the historian and philosopher Justin E. H. Smith suggested "Graeber and Wengrow are to be credited for helping to relegitimise this necessary component of historical anthropology, which for better or worse is born out of the history of the missions and early modern global commerce."[25] Reviewers in the Ecologist expressed the view that "Graeber and Wengrow seem caught in a time warp and fail to engage with the enormous body of new scholarship on human evolution" while, at the same time, calling the book a "howling wind of fresh air".[26] Reviewing for Scientific American, John Horgan described the book as “both a dense, 692-page scholarly inquiry into the origins of civilization and an exhilarating vision of human possibility,” suggesting that the authors “are justified” in accusing Stephen Pinker of “ignoring data contradicting his Hobbesian outlook.”[27]

Writing for The Hindu, G. Sampath noted that two strands run through the book: "the consolidation of a corpus of archaeological evidence, and a history of ideas." Inspired by "the rediscovery of an unknown past," he asks, "can humanity imagine a future that’s more worthy of itself?"[28] Reviewing for Science, Erle Ellis described The Dawn of Everything as "a great book that will stimulate discussions, change minds, and drive new lines of research".[29] Meanwhile, anthropologist Richard Handler claimed that the book’s endnotes “often reveal that a particularly startling interpretation of archaeological evidence depends on one or two sources taken from vast bodies of literature” while also claiming that the stories told “are stories we need and want to hear.”[30] Historian Ryne Clos claimed that the book partly relies on "a specious, exaggerated interpretation of the historical evidence" but that it is also "incredibly informative".[31]

Writing for Artforum, Simon Wu called The Dawn of Everything a “bracing rewrite of human history”, suggesting that while its “premise is exhilarating” its “implications are only beginning to be considered”.[32] In Anthropology Today, Arjun Appadurai accused the book of “swerving to avoid a host of counter-examples and counter-arguments” while also describing the book's "fable" as “compelling”.[33] David Wengrow responded in the same issue.[34] Another anthropologist, Matthew Porges, writing in The Los Angeles Review of Books suggested the book is "provocative, if not necessarily comprehensive", and that its “great value is that it provides a much better point of departure for future explorations of what was actually happening in the past”.[35]

The historian Walter Scheidel claimed to have exposed “a wide range of serious flaws in what is otherwise a timely and stimulating book”. In response to the book’s suggestion that where one sets “the dial between freedom and determinism is largely … a matter of taste”, Scheidel wrote “that it is something else entirely, namely one of the greatest intellectual challenges of all”.[36] Archaeologist Mike Pitts, reviewing for British Archaeology described the book as "glorious" and suggested that its joint authorship by an anthropologist and an archaeologist "gives the book a depth and rigour rarely seen in the genre".[37] In Antiquity, archaeologist Rachael Kiddey suggested that the book arose from “playful conversations between two eminently qualified friends” and also that it contributes to “feminist revisions of the development of knowledge.”[38]

Writing for Black Perspectives Kevin Suemnicht noted that the book develops ideas proposed by Orlando Patterson to account for the loss of human freedoms, and argued that the book confirms the “Fanonian positions within the Black Radical Tradition that this world-system is inherently anti-Black”.[39] Meanwhile, Sébastien Doubinsky called the book "an important work, both as a summary of recent discoveries in the fields of archaeology and anthropology and as an eye-opener on the structures of dominant narratives".[40]

The historian Dominic Alexander wrote that “despite the undoubted wealth of fascinating and important material” the evidence used in the book is often “questionable and fragile”. He cites the example of what he calls the book’s “tendentious” treatment of early Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilization in which “evidence that these were highly stratified class societies is mostly ignored.”[41] Meanwhile, the anthropologist Durba Chattaraj claimed that the book includes "elisions, slippages, and too-exaggerated leaps” when referring to archaeology from India, while also stating that its authors are “extremely rigorous and meticulous scholars”, and that reading the book from India "expands our worlds and allows us to step outside of a particular postcolonial predicament."[42]

In Bookforum, Michael Robbins called the book both “maddening” and “wonderful.” [43] Cory Doctorow called The Dawn of Everything a "crucial intervention, fuel for a new imagination of a world governed by a radically different theory of human nature," and "an important, world-changing book."[44] Nicolas Villarreal described the book as “a series of brilliant interventions” while criticising the authors for not appreciating that ideology and politics are “the source of our profound unfreedom." While arguing that "the freedom to choose one’s own society as the authors pose it, is a fiction,” he also describes their ideas as "forever indispensable" in the search for social change.[45]

References[]

  1. ^ "The Dawn of Everything". Kirkus Reviews. August 24, 2021. Archived from the original on October 19, 2021. Retrieved October 18, 2021.
  2. ^ Deresiewicz, William (October 18, 2021). "It Didn't Have to Be This Way". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on October 18, 2021. Retrieved October 18, 2021.
  3. ^ Bratishenko, Lev (October 18, 2021). "Our ancient ancestors may have been more civilized than we are". Maclean's. Archived from the original on October 19, 2021. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  4. ^ a b c Schuessler, Jennifer (October 31, 2021). "What if Everything You Learned About Human History Is Wrong?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on October 31, 2021. Retrieved October 31, 2021.
  5. ^ "THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING by David Graeber and David Wengrow | News | Janklow & Nesbit".
  6. ^ "»Anfänge« sichert sich den Spitzenplatz". February 3, 2022.
  7. ^ "The Dawn of Everything".
  8. ^ Lewis-Kraus, Gideon (November 2021). "Early Civilizations Had It All Figured Out". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on December 12, 2021. Retrieved December 9, 2021.
  9. ^ "Human History Gets a Rewrite". The Atlantic. October 2021. Archived from the original on October 18, 2021. Retrieved October 18, 2021.
  10. ^ Kern, Emily (November 2021). "The Radical Promise of Human History". Boston Review. Archived from the original on December 9, 2021. Retrieved December 9, 2021.
  11. ^ Ongaro, Giulio (October 2021). "David Graeber Knew Ordinary People Could Remake the World". Jacobin. Archived from the original on October 23, 2021. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  12. ^ Ongaro, Giulio. "David Graeber's Final Challenge". tribunemag.co.uk. Archived from the original on December 14, 2021. Retrieved December 14, 2021.
  13. ^ Immerwahr, Daniel (September 2021). "Beyond the State". The Nation. Archived from the original on October 18, 2021. Retrieved October 18, 2021.
  14. ^ Anthony, Andrew (October 2021). "Have we got our ancestors wrong?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on October 18, 2021. Retrieved October 18, 2021.
  15. ^ Priestland, David (October 2021). "Inequality is not the price of civilisation". The Guardian. Archived from the original on October 23, 2021. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  16. ^ Kuhn, Gabriel (January 2022). "Dawning on You..." LeftTwoThree.
  17. ^ Appleyard, Bryan (October 2021). "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow review — how Sapiens got it wrong". The Sunday Times.
  18. ^ Knight, Chris (December 2021). "The Dawn of Everything, by David Graeber and David Wengrow". Times Higher Education Supplement. Archived from the original on December 9, 2021. Retrieved December 9, 2021.(Review also accessible here)
  19. ^ Knight, Chris (December 2021). "Wrong About (Almost) Everything". Focaal. Retrieved December 25, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  20. ^ Suzman, James (November 2021). "On the Origin of Our Species". Literary Review. Retrieved December 29, 2021.
  21. ^ "The Dawn Of Everything: A New History of Humanity (Review)". New York Journal of Books. November 2021. Retrieved December 29, 2021.
  22. ^ Appiah, Kwame Anthony (December 2021). "Digging for Utopia". New York Review of Books. Archived from the original on December 9, 2021. Retrieved December 9, 2021.
  23. ^ Appiah, Kwame Anthony (January 2022). "The Roots of Inequality". New York Review of Books. Archived from the original on January 13, 2022. Retrieved December 25, 2021.
  24. ^ "A Flawed History of Humanity". Persuasion. November 2021. Archived from the original on November 20, 2021. Retrieved November 20, 2021.
  25. ^ "On David Graeber and David Wengrow's New History of Humanity". Substack. November 2021. Retrieved November 15, 2021.
  26. ^ "All things being equal". Ecologist. December 2021. Archived from the original on December 17, 2021. Retrieved December 17, 2021.
  27. ^ Horgan, John. "Ancient Peoples Teach Us That We Can Create a Better World, A radical retelling of civilization's origins leads to an expansive vision of human possibility". Scientific American. Retrieved February 28, 2022.
  28. ^ Sampath, G. (December 2021). "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity review: Exploding myths of prehistory". The Hindu. Retrieved December 18, 2021.
  29. ^ Ellis, Erle C. (December 2021). "New views on ancient peoples: a bold reappraisal of human history upends long-held theories about early societies". Science. 374 (6571): 1061. doi:10.1126/science.abm1652. PMID 34822293. S2CID 244660188.
  30. ^ Handler, Richard (January 2022). "Prehistory without hierarchy". Times Literary Supplement.
  31. ^ Clos, Ryne (January 2022). "The Dawn of Everything: by David Graeber and David Wengrow". Spectrum Culture.
  32. ^ "Breaking Dawn: David Graeber and David Wengrow's new history of humanity". Artforum. January 2022.
  33. ^ Appadurai, Arjun (February 2022). "The Dawn of Everything?". Anthropology Today. doi:10.1111/(ISSN)1467-8322.
  34. ^ Wengrow, David (February 2022). "The Dawn of Everything". Anthropology Today. 38: 21. doi:10.1111/1467-8322.12699. S2CID 246539440.
  35. ^ Porges, Matthew (February 2022). "A political Garden of Eden?". Los Angeles Review of Books.
  36. ^ Scheidel, Walter (January 2022). "Resetting History's Dial? A Critique of David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity" (PDF). Cliodynamics.
  37. ^ Pitts, Mike (February 2022). "Review, The Dawn of Everything". British Archaeology, January–February 2002, p.59.
  38. ^ "The dawn of everything, a new history of humanity, Review". Antiquity. February 2022. Retrieved March 2, 2022.
  39. ^ Suemnicht, Kevin (February 2022). "The Black Radical Tradition in The Dawn of Everything".
  40. ^ Doubinsky, Sebastian (February 2022). "The Twilight of Mainstream Historical Narratives: a review of David Graeber and David Wengrow's The Dawn Of Everything".
  41. ^ Alexander, Dominic (February 10, 2022). "'The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity' - book review". Counterfire.
  42. ^ Chattaraj, Durba (February 12, 2022). "Reading 'The Dawn of Everything' from India: What if the past was a more enlightened place?". Vishwada News.
  43. ^ Robbins, Michael. "Look Back in Anger: A radical reading of early human societies". Bookforum. Retrieved March 2, 2022.
  44. ^ Doctorow, Cory. "The Dawn of Everything, an essential reminder that we are in charge of our own destiny".
  45. ^ Villarreal, Nicolas D (March 6, 2022). "The Dawn of Social Evolution". Cosmonaut Magazine.

Further reading[]

External links[]

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