joncassie 's review for:

The Dawn of Everything by David Wengrow, David Graeber

5.0

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Truly a masterpiece and a great loss to human knowledge that one of the authors has died since the book was published. And while I think it's fair to say the book is a masterpiece, there are times when they theorize and speculate in the same ways they critique as fantasy by those whose work comes before or who are as committed to seeing states in prehistory as the authors are to non-state prehistory. Having said that, it's a great gift to us that the book recontextualizes so much and brings areas and places outside the conventional prehistorical or early historical places (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus Valley, China) into the conversation. Moreover, their reassessment of ancient Egypt, in particular what the Intermediate Periods actually were, was insightful.