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The Dawn of Everything
- A New History of Humanity
- Narrated by: Malk Williams
- Length: 24 hrs and 2 mins
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Publisher's Summary
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Renowned activist and public intellectual David Graeber teams up with professor of comparative archaeology David Wengrow to deliver 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 only be achieved by sacrificing those original freedoms, or alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. Graeber and 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 path-breaking 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% 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.
What the critics say
"This is not a book. This is an intellectual feast. There is not a single chapter that does not (playfully) disrupt well-seated intellectual beliefs. It is deep, effortlessly iconoclastic, factually rigorous, and pleasurable to read.” (Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan)
“Synthesizing much recent scholarship, The Dawn of Everything briskly overthrows old and obsolete assumptions about the past, renews our intellectual and spiritual resources, and reveals, miraculously, the future as open-ended. It is the most bracing book I have read in recent years.” (Pankaj Mishra, author of The Age of Anger)
“Graeber and Wengrow have effectively overturned everything I ever thought about the history of the world. A thorough and elegant refutation of evolutionary theories of history, The Dawn of Everything introduces us to a world populated by smart, creative, complicated people who, for thousands of years, invented virtually every form of social organization imaginable and pursued freedom, knowledge, experimentation, and happiness way before ‘the Enlightenment.’ The authors don’t just debunk the myths; they give a thrilling intellectual history of how they came about, why they persist, and what it all means for the just future we hope to create. The most profound and exciting book I’ve read in thirty years.” (Robin D. G. Kelley, Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History at UCLA and author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination)
What listeners say about The Dawn of Everything
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Overall
- Josh White
- 2022-08-21
Ancient history revolutionary thought
I really enjoyed the thought that went behind ancient history and how different of a place it may have been. A must listen for people who want to understand and further conceptuallize the deep past. We are so caught up in our current paradigm that it is hard to conceive of anything else. I also appreciated the authors referencing of First Nation's cultures, its impacts on European thought and respecting people as people across both time and space.
The narrator was engaging and well spoken. Highly reccomended.
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- Jtoronto
- 2022-09-23
Fantastic and inspiring book
Highly recommend. The proposed concept that our historical knowledge os ancient societal norms may have a lot to teach us is provocative and far reaching.
Aside from its great content the reader’s performance is exceptionally good and captivating.
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- Duncan Turnbull
- 2022-07-01
An excellent primer on new historical information
narrator was great. tone was playful but not ridiculous. looking forward to my reread of it.
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- Anonymous User
- 2022-03-10
game changing
Parts of thie felt like banned book material just because of how well it tears down the world we think we know.
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- Anonymous User
- 2023-09-09
Very insightful
The critique of western assumptions about social development was thought provoking. Enjoyed the diverse examples that the authors referenced.
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- Robert McInnis
- 2022-01-01
A Tome
In a distracted world, I am sure I wouldn't have made it through turning pages. 24 hours of audio was a slog and I have no sense of what Chapter One contained.
Still, I enjoyed the work enough that I am adding it to my 2022 list,
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- Amazon Customer
- 2022-03-12
Finally, a truly global history of humanity
This book not only presents new archaeological research about civilizations and cultures you never learned about, but it also does so with a philosophical depth that helps you question how and why we’ve interpreted the past through the lens of the western canon. The western canon, after all, is just one socio-cultural lens among many, and by approaching our history through many other lenses, we are able to develop new questions about our diverse histories — the book is filled with great questions to help guide future research and thinking.
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- Katherine
- 2022-06-19
Complex and clear.
The authors do an excellent job of reviewing the literature and starting from a position of curiosity in their analysis. Complex yet very clear.
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- Inbae Ahn
- 2023-02-06
Reframed My Perpective
A thorough and balanced synthesis of the most recent archeological facts that debunks many theories we are taught about the inevitability of modern social structures. It’s an update to the story of our species that challenged my assumptions about the limits to how benevolent and free societies can be. I appreciated the author’s continuous use of archeological data to illustrate the main points. I especially liked the optimism and call to action in the conclusion.
Very well narrated. The material was actually easier to grasp because the narrator was so good.
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- jef
- 2023-05-24
Interesting Listening
A challenging approach to the questions and answers that dominant the study of human history.
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