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4.27 AVERAGE
4.27 AVERAGE
challenging
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
5 stars two reasons:
1) hoes mad
2) abolish border
in all seriousness i think this book is best treated as a polemic (i know nothing about archaeology and barely anything about anthropology and some people who seem to say the sources are misused), and it’s a damn good polemic.
or: a good way of thinking about history that i can use to piss off men
here is a poem.
my review of the dawn of everything: a poem
1) hoes mad
2) abolish border
in all seriousness i think this book is best treated as a polemic (i know nothing about archaeology and barely anything about anthropology and some people who seem to say the sources are misused), and it’s a damn good polemic.
or: a good way of thinking about history that i can use to piss off men
here is a poem.
my review of the dawn of everything: a poem
Time does not exist for us, it happens to us. Or rather upon us.
To survive we must defy the very laws of nature,
defy nature:
strip the casing from an innocent green stalk for brick,
castrate plant life and fling it into piles and bury its children.
And then from the seedling coffins, wrestle life from the earth with mud-soaked fists,
and for all that work, we are called a force immeasurable,
an endless ebb
not woman, but history,
immemorial
There are no guns here, but there are fists and hair and teeth
and tiny, swelling statues,
(now a subject of debate).
And in a heap of it all,
over layers of rubble and concrete glaze,
I am
here. From a seedling coffin
upon its afterbirth, no,
on its leg stretched out over its heart,
crushed,
splattering everywhere, and then a rust smear
lost to porous brick
and the fingerprints of the tiny hands who formed it.
And we go!
Fascinating cover-to-cover. Made me think a lot throughout about what my default assumptions about what prehistorical societies were - which I think was pretty much that we existed in small egalitarian bands. Even though if I thought about it I probably would have said this wasn’t exactly true, I wouldn’t have had any basis for an alternative explanation. This period of history is typically brushed over as “here are some highlights, but really nothing much of importance happened”. Not only does this book present tons of evidence to the contrary, but prompts us to question why we consider certain things more “important” than others.
When the defining view of history since the Enlightenment has been that all of history was simply the prelude to the modern world (which, of course, was the only, inevitable result for humanity) it becomes easy to dismiss things that don’t fit into that evolutionary way of thinking as bumps in the road. What Graeber and Wengrow ask us to consider is that possibly, far from “bumps”, what if these really present alternatives - roads not taken. The central question of this book is not “How did social inequality arise?”, but “How did we become stuck?”.
As some reviews mention, there is a fair amount of speculation going on here, some of which I found more convincing than others. However, the fact that it is speculation doesn’t matter so much as the fact that it is *plausible* speculation. As they mention several times, it is really impossible to determine exactly what was going on in prehistoric societies, and some amount of speculation is present in any reading of the evidence. However, as they go on to say, typically that speculation is geared in one direction, confirming the evolutionary view of civilization, when in fact there’s no real reason beyond inertia to believe that to be true. What they ask here is why can’t we speculate the other way, and assume that people weren’t in some dreamlike existence of egalitarian bands prior to the agricultural revolution, or that perhaps history could have (and in fact had for some time) played out in ways that didn’t lead to the rise of top-down structures of administration and control?
When the defining view of history since the Enlightenment has been that all of history was simply the prelude to the modern world (which, of course, was the only, inevitable result for humanity) it becomes easy to dismiss things that don’t fit into that evolutionary way of thinking as bumps in the road. What Graeber and Wengrow ask us to consider is that possibly, far from “bumps”, what if these really present alternatives - roads not taken. The central question of this book is not “How did social inequality arise?”, but “How did we become stuck?”.
As some reviews mention, there is a fair amount of speculation going on here, some of which I found more convincing than others. However, the fact that it is speculation doesn’t matter so much as the fact that it is *plausible* speculation. As they mention several times, it is really impossible to determine exactly what was going on in prehistoric societies, and some amount of speculation is present in any reading of the evidence. However, as they go on to say, typically that speculation is geared in one direction, confirming the evolutionary view of civilization, when in fact there’s no real reason beyond inertia to believe that to be true. What they ask here is why can’t we speculate the other way, and assume that people weren’t in some dreamlike existence of egalitarian bands prior to the agricultural revolution, or that perhaps history could have (and in fact had for some time) played out in ways that didn’t lead to the rise of top-down structures of administration and control?
adventurous
challenging
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
Like other intellectual refreshers, this book allows us to assess the present and discard past mythologies. It’s time to do some house cleaning, and we have a big house.
informative
slow-paced
hopeful
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
An incredibly in depth peek into the history of humanity. As someone who isn't an archaeologist or anthropologist, the book was too dense for me and I found myself confused about names and timelines, but the book was rich and provided a different perspectives of how our societies have come to be, and what we can do for our future.
informative
inspiring
reflective
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
adventurous
challenging
informative
medium-paced
Perhaps my expectations were too high of this book. I had tried to read it twice before this attempt, and both times I quit midway the first chapter. This time I managed to finish the book, but it was a real struggle. The central thesis of the book is that the popular narrative on human evolution, the state and agriculture is fundamentally misguided and not based on the results of contemporary anthropological and archeological research. It makes the compelling case that there are alternative ways of looking at the history of humanity, which are fundamentally more imaginative than the teleological narrative of hunter-gatherers moving to agriculture moving to industry etc etc.
The trouble with this book for me lay in the fact that it is unbelievably repetitive and uneven. Some chapters (such as the opening one on the Indigenous critique of European ways of life and the Enlightenment more broadly) were captivating from the start, such that I would not be surprised if I assigned them to students at university. But other chapters simply drown in dry asides and are overloaded with information. I understand that the goal of the two Davids was to underpin their argument with empirical evidence and new insights from research, but they completely lost me at certain points.
Unfortunately, this wealth of information is at times counterbalanced by a lack of critical engagement with the more problematic aspects of contemporary scholarship on human evolution. At several points the book outright contradicts itself when it comes to the naturalization of the nuclear family. For example, at one point I found them arguing that Northwest Pacific communities were made up from what were essentially nuclear family units without an overarching bureaucracy or state, while simultaneously pointing out that in some cases a mere 10% of close family members were biologically related. From my perspective as a queer studies scholar that is unbelievably interesting, because it provides additional material to argue against the naturalization of the nuclear family. However, this is never truly investigated, and the book also never questions the validity of the gender binary - which becomes downright problematic every single time they attempt to write about the role of women in these early communities.
TLDR: uneven book, it is worth a read if you have the time, otherwise I would stick to the first chapter and the two final ones as it summarizes the material of the chapters in between quite well.
The trouble with this book for me lay in the fact that it is unbelievably repetitive and uneven. Some chapters (such as the opening one on the Indigenous critique of European ways of life and the Enlightenment more broadly) were captivating from the start, such that I would not be surprised if I assigned them to students at university. But other chapters simply drown in dry asides and are overloaded with information. I understand that the goal of the two Davids was to underpin their argument with empirical evidence and new insights from research, but they completely lost me at certain points.
Unfortunately, this wealth of information is at times counterbalanced by a lack of critical engagement with the more problematic aspects of contemporary scholarship on human evolution. At several points the book outright contradicts itself when it comes to the naturalization of the nuclear family. For example, at one point I found them arguing that Northwest Pacific communities were made up from what were essentially nuclear family units without an overarching bureaucracy or state, while simultaneously pointing out that in some cases a mere 10% of close family members were biologically related. From my perspective as a queer studies scholar that is unbelievably interesting, because it provides additional material to argue against the naturalization of the nuclear family. However, this is never truly investigated, and the book also never questions the validity of the gender binary - which becomes downright problematic every single time they attempt to write about the role of women in these early communities.
TLDR: uneven book, it is worth a read if you have the time, otherwise I would stick to the first chapter and the two final ones as it summarizes the material of the chapters in between quite well.
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
If we are avid readers of history, one thing we must acknowledge is that any book about history is fundamentally a narrative. And narratives, by nature, involve a certain amount of "cherry-picking" to fit the grander story we're trying to tell. With that in mind, I do want to say - I very much enjoyed the story The Dawn of Everything told me. I've always believed human beings are too complex for one singular, overarching theme to describe us. But of all the arguments we make about the essence of human nature, I think this book offers a very reasonable, believable one. The book's characterization of human beings as creative, intelligent (to a certain degree) and self-conscious of their own arrangements is definitely a characterization I can get behind. (And I loved the acknowledgement that we really don't know a lot of things — including how much of life is conscious and how much of it is deterministic).
I learned a lot while reading this book, and I particularly enjoyed the sections about Native American influences on the Enlightment. It also challenged a lot of my perceptions about the linear evolutions of human society and left me feeling intrigued about different possibilities. The following quote from Men in Black really encompasses my views on some of this book's revelations:
Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know totomorrow.
Our "knowing" must rapidly change with every new development in archeology and anthropology and I think this book has made me more amenable to these developments. It helped that the writers occasionally peppered in some humor and wit and called out their peers for their stubbornness in holding onto old beliefs — even in light of newer evidence. Of course, some of the book did go over my head, especially in the later parts, but I'd like to think I retained the broad strokes nonetheless. This was a generally satisfying and enjoyable read. Even if it's sheer in volume, the authors do a good job at structuring everything in an easy-to-digest manner, allowing all the arguments from each chapter to come full circle by the end and build up to their "thesis statement." I'm glad I tackled this! Definitely reignited my passion for non-fiction of this sort.
I learned a lot while reading this book, and I particularly enjoyed the sections about Native American influences on the Enlightment. It also challenged a lot of my perceptions about the linear evolutions of human society and left me feeling intrigued about different possibilities. The following quote from Men in Black really encompasses my views on some of this book's revelations:
Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know totomorrow.
Our "knowing" must rapidly change with every new development in archeology and anthropology and I think this book has made me more amenable to these developments. It helped that the writers occasionally peppered in some humor and wit and called out their peers for their stubbornness in holding onto old beliefs — even in light of newer evidence. Of course, some of the book did go over my head, especially in the later parts, but I'd like to think I retained the broad strokes nonetheless. This was a generally satisfying and enjoyable read. Even if it's sheer in volume, the authors do a good job at structuring everything in an easy-to-digest manner, allowing all the arguments from each chapter to come full circle by the end and build up to their "thesis statement." I'm glad I tackled this! Definitely reignited my passion for non-fiction of this sort.