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A review by iarlais
The Dawn of Everything by David Wengrow, David Graeber
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
4.0
I can't help but admit I found it meandering, but I can't honestly say if that's the fault of the book or just my attention span, which simply isn't used to a literary colossus like this.
So that being said, I really do mean it when I state that this is one of the most impressive books I've ever read. The authors proclaim this work to be a decade-long labour of love, and that's very easily believed. The sheer abundance of historical knowledge is simply overwhelming, and it's all the more impressive given that neither of the authors are historians - personally, as someone with a degree in history, I can't fathom writing something this comprehensive.
It's definitely an anarchist work, no denying that, and I'm compelled to draw a comparison to the seminal anarchist polemic The Conquest of Bread. Why I do this is because both books offer a hopeful future to look forward to, but try to provide so many arguments to convince the reader that it becomes somewhat overwhelming. It's like trying to appreciate a forest, but you think to yourself "Hm, this place could actually lose a few trees here and there so I don't keep bumping into one." However, the central thesis of this book stays strong throughout, and the authors do round back to their introduction at the end, which my feeble brain appreciates.
The core of The Dawn of Everything is best explained by Ursula K. Le Guin's famous quote "We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings." I will pause to promise you that I am not as pretentious as this review makes me seem - pulling up both Kropotkin and Le Guin does make me sound rather insufferable, but I truly do believe these are apt connections. Anyways, the book's thesis is like that quote in that it foresees a future in which neither king nor capital stand above us. The reasons for that belief are manifold, but suffice to say that several historical examples of citizens abandoning/overthrowing authority to live in egalitarianism form the basis for this argument, as well as excavations of past civilizations that show cities deliberately constructed to proclaim equality in their very geography.
My personal favourite part of the book was the first proper chapter, past the introduction, which deals with the influence indigenous Americans had on the Enlightenment. It's fascinating to think about two different kinds of society, one based on hierarchy and one as far away from such a concept as possible, each formed on two continents separated by a vast ocean. It's like something you'd see in fictitious worldbuilding, but it's real. I was genuinely so surprised to learn that people like Kondiaronk shocked and inspired Enlightenment thinkers so much, because I'd never heard of him, and yet he is so important! Without him and the other indigenous speakers, perhaps the French Revolution would never have come to pass. This is just a taste of the many fascinating chunks of history spread across this novel, and I was always craving more.
It's a book that I will absolutely need to reread in the future, in order to actually download the information I parsed in my first round of reading, and I can look forward to that when the time comes. Yes, it's overwhelming, but the prose is engaging, the historical perspectives and inputs are fresh and engaging, and it makes you rethink how you viewed the past, which is an easy star for me anytime I review a historical work. Kudos to the dynamic duo of anthropologist and archaeologist.
So that being said, I really do mean it when I state that this is one of the most impressive books I've ever read. The authors proclaim this work to be a decade-long labour of love, and that's very easily believed. The sheer abundance of historical knowledge is simply overwhelming, and it's all the more impressive given that neither of the authors are historians - personally, as someone with a degree in history, I can't fathom writing something this comprehensive.
It's definitely an anarchist work, no denying that, and I'm compelled to draw a comparison to the seminal anarchist polemic The Conquest of Bread. Why I do this is because both books offer a hopeful future to look forward to, but try to provide so many arguments to convince the reader that it becomes somewhat overwhelming. It's like trying to appreciate a forest, but you think to yourself "Hm, this place could actually lose a few trees here and there so I don't keep bumping into one." However, the central thesis of this book stays strong throughout, and the authors do round back to their introduction at the end, which my feeble brain appreciates.
The core of The Dawn of Everything is best explained by Ursula K. Le Guin's famous quote "We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings." I will pause to promise you that I am not as pretentious as this review makes me seem - pulling up both Kropotkin and Le Guin does make me sound rather insufferable, but I truly do believe these are apt connections. Anyways, the book's thesis is like that quote in that it foresees a future in which neither king nor capital stand above us. The reasons for that belief are manifold, but suffice to say that several historical examples of citizens abandoning/overthrowing authority to live in egalitarianism form the basis for this argument, as well as excavations of past civilizations that show cities deliberately constructed to proclaim equality in their very geography.
My personal favourite part of the book was the first proper chapter, past the introduction, which deals with the influence indigenous Americans had on the Enlightenment. It's fascinating to think about two different kinds of society, one based on hierarchy and one as far away from such a concept as possible, each formed on two continents separated by a vast ocean. It's like something you'd see in fictitious worldbuilding, but it's real. I was genuinely so surprised to learn that people like Kondiaronk shocked and inspired Enlightenment thinkers so much, because I'd never heard of him, and yet he is so important! Without him and the other indigenous speakers, perhaps the French Revolution would never have come to pass. This is just a taste of the many fascinating chunks of history spread across this novel, and I was always craving more.
It's a book that I will absolutely need to reread in the future, in order to actually download the information I parsed in my first round of reading, and I can look forward to that when the time comes. Yes, it's overwhelming, but the prose is engaging, the historical perspectives and inputs are fresh and engaging, and it makes you rethink how you viewed the past, which is an easy star for me anytime I review a historical work. Kudos to the dynamic duo of anthropologist and archaeologist.
Content Warnings
Minor: Colonisation and Slavery