The Dawn of Everything
A New History of Humanity
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The Dawn of Everything
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Narrated by:
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Malk Williams
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike - either free and equal, or thuggish and warlike. Civilisation, 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 18th century as a reaction to Indigenous critiques of European society and why they are wrong. In doing so, they overturn our view of human history, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery and civilisation itself.
Drawing on path-breaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we begin to see what's really there. If humans did not spend 95 per cent 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 organisation did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected and suggest that the course of history may be less set in stone and more full of playful possibilities than we tend to assume.
The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path towards imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organising society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision and faith in the power of direct action.
©2021 David Graeber, David Wengrow (P)2021 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
"Pacey and potentially revolutionary." (Sunday Times)
"Iconoclastic and irreverent...an exhilarating read." (Guardian)
"Boldly ambitious, entertaining and thought-provoking." (Observer)
What listeners say about The Dawn of Everything
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Liam
- 03-01-22
Challenges the myths of how societies develop
This is a thoroughly enjoyable book, very well reproduced as an audiobook.
It has become axiomatic that societies develop from hunter-gatherer to rural farming to urban, commercial, then industrial. This book challenges this assumption with multiple well-described examples. Why shouldn’t people like us (our ancestors) have been just as capable as we are of living in multiple different ways?
The world and our history is much more complex than simple myths of “inevitable progress” might suggest.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Richard Tol
- 17-12-21
Great book
Good introduction to the latest in archaeology and anthropology with an amusing overlay of theory.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- 5ft7offootballheaven
- 22-01-23
Excellent Thought Provoking Grand Historical Sweep
So much in here to commend. Counter intuitive. Counter prevailing narratives. Huge amount of stuff I have never heard of. Really good counter balance to the history you were all taught. …
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Omar
- 22-04-23
Perspective changing
One of the most enlightening books I have ever read or listened to. David Graeber left us too soon.
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- Mark Hoskins
- 21-06-24
Insert mind blown emoji here
This is one of the best books i have ever encountered and the best in it’s subject area. Blows both modern capitalist and orthodox Marxist beliefs about historical development out of the water. The authors left no stone uncovered in this rigorously researched volume as they outline the emergence and reemergence of myriad different complexly organised societies previously dismissed my academic consensus as primitive. I will be reccomending this book to absolutely everyone.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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- iampago
- 21-06-22
The narrator makes this an impossible listen
The content is fascinating but the narrator’s tone and pace makes it very difficult listening. He reads with a glaring bias in his voice that, having read Graeber’s other works, I refuse to believe was what the writers were going for. The narration is loud, practically shouting at times, and with a tone I can only describe as quite snide. It was so off-putting that I’ve ended up just buying the paperback to read. A real shame - the production is completely off on this.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 09-02-22
A captivating part of history nobody talks about
I was captivated by the subject. Definitely inspiring book. It is my first audio book that makes me consider buying a hard copy.
I can understand why other reviewers complain about the tone of the narrator, but it wasn't detracting from the experience for me.
It is very sad that this is the last book from David Graeber.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Kindle Customer
- 08-02-23
Essential listening
One of the most important listens of our era. Blows away your misconceptions and reveals a wealth of possibilities for the future.
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- Meredith Silburn
- 05-07-23
Amazing scope and synthesis
An overview of human development and of the human condition. Readdressing the question: Why do we live as we do? with modern evidence.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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- Olly Buxton
- 11-11-21
not the great revolution I was expecting
David Graeber was a genuinely provocative and original thinker, a beautiful writer, and his “Debt: The First 5000 years” is a really thought-provoking book. Perhaps I have been softened up having read works by James C Scott, Jane Jacobs, Barbara Tuchman, Jeremy Lent and others, but this wasn't the epic gobsmacker it was billed as. It is interesting, but not gripping, and the promised takedowns of Yuval Harari and Steven Pinker weren't quite as eviscerating as I was hoping.
Graeber’s post structuralist approach means he can't king-hit conventional wisdom anything like as hard as he would clearly like to - the best he can do is say “this is coloured and biased by X and y perspectives, and here's an alternative perspective ...” but he would have too concede that his perspective, too, is necessarily biased and coloured, drawing just as selectively and extrapolating just as willfully from the record.
Fairly well read but the narrator's tone, whether by accident or design, errs on the side of sounding snide, which doesn't help the presentation.
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18 people found this helpful