The Dawn of Everything urges us to see a past that, rather than justifying the status quo, allows us to think critically about the ways society might have been and might yet be.
Had a great time teaming up with historian Brad Bolman (with wonderful editorial support from Lily Scherlis and the Team at Chicago Review) to review The Dawn of Everything: A New Human History by David Graeber and David Wengrow. Check it out - and, more importantly, check out the book! https://www.chicagoreview.org/david-graeber-the-dawn-of-everything/
To take an example: one central assumption in many narratives about human social development is that the emergence of large-scale agriculture represented a monolithic “revolution,” one which increased social complexity and permanently reshaped societies. That story is a myth. Graeber and Wengrow highlight the many planned cities and megalithic monuments—fêtes that would have taken extensive, coordinated labor to accomplish—that exist in non-agricultural contexts. While these are sites that have been studied for years, even decades, by archaeologists, the fact that many of the discipline’s discoveries are hidden away behind paywalls has left a vacuum that has increasingly been filled by pseudoscientific content. In the wake of television shows like Ancient Aliens and Atlantis Found, beliefs that ancient humans had “outside help”—extraterrestrial or supernatural beings—are on the rise.
The demand for this content—Ancient Aliens is in its eighteenth season—speaks to the same underestimation of the ingenuity and potential of past people that Graeber and Wengrow lament. The megalithic site of Göbekli Tepe, for instance, has become a popular favorite due to its visually stunning anthropomorphic pillars, built before the development of farming. The Joe Rogan Experience, arguably the most listened-to podcast in the world, has promoted pseudoscientific theories about the site on several episodes, each receiving millions of listens.
The Dawn of Everything reveals, however, that people of the ancient past were almost constantly involved in projects of fascinating interest and complexity, whether they had agriculture or not. The disbelief that hunting and gathering societies could have coordinated the labor to build the megalithic structures of Göbekli Tepe has everything to do with our lack of imagination about the possibilities of social organization in the past. When we reimagine the way in which people obtain their food as only one of many features characterizing a particular social organization, Göbekli Tepe becomes less shocking, although no less impressive.
Rather than the end of every debate, David Graeber and David's book should prompt new investigations into human possibilities—those lost, forgotten, or foreclosed, and the many yet to come.
And to continue the conversation - we highly recommend this podcast, including Phillip Deloria’s discussion about how Indigenous critiques of western social theory “stretch from the very beginnings, first contact, up to the present day.” https://radioopensource.org/a-new-history-of-humanity/
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