The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity - David Graeber & D. Wengrow

NB: This is a tentatively scheduled event. Events are confirmed and announced 4 weeks before the event begins, at which time RSVP's are opened.

Join us for a discussion of The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow!

Synopsis:

• A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution—from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and 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 be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and David 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 pathbreaking 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 percent 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? 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.

Discussion Questions (subject to revision):

• The book emphasizes that human societies have experimented with many different forms of organization—sometimes hierarchical, sometimes egalitarian, sometimes seasonal. How does this variety affect the way we think about what is possible today?
• If history is not a straight line from “primitive” to “civilized,” but a record of choices, what responsibilities does that place on us in shaping our own societies?
• The authors argue that agriculture and cities did not automatically lead to hierarchy and domination. What examples from the book stood out to you, and how do they change the way you think about “progress”?
• Instead of a single “agricultural revolution,” the authors describe long periods of experimentation with farming, foraging, and mixed ways of living. What do these experiments reveal about the kinds of choices people had—and the reasons they might resist or delay full-time farming?
• They highlight Indigenous critiques of European society in the eighteenth century as a turning point in how people imagined freedom and equality. What does this tell us about where our political ideas really come from?

Whether you’ve read the whole book or just want to explore some of its central ideas, you’re welcome to join!

Thanks to Spartacus Books for generously opening up their space for us! If you're able, please support them with a small donation (suggested: $2), or with a purchase if one of their titles catches your fancy.