David Graeber and David Wengrow – ‘The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity’. This new book from Graeber and Wengrow seeks to challenge assumptions about human social evolution and narratives of a linear development from primitive brutes to civilised people. Instead, the authors draw attention to the diversity of earlier human societies, arguing that humans had lived in large, complex, and decentralized societies for thousands of years. In doing so, Graeber and Wengrow fundamentally transform both our understanding of the past, and our vision for new ways of organising society in the future.

Schedule

  • Thursday 23rd December - Foreword, Chapters 1 & 2
  • Sunday 2nd January - Chapters 3 & 4
  • Sunday 9th January - Chapters 5 & 6
  • Sunday 16th January - Chapters 7 & 8
  • Sunday 23rd January - Chapters 9 & 10
  • Sunday 30th January - Chapter 11 & Conclusion

Outline

  • Chapter 1: Farewell to Humanity’s Childhood

    • SOME BRIEF EXAMPLES OF WHY RECEIVED UNDERSTANDINGS OF THE BROAD SWEEP OF HUMAN HISTORY ARE MOSTLY WRONG (OR, THE ETERNAL RETURN OF JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU)
    • ON THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
    • HOW THE CONVENTIONAL NARRATIVE OF HUMAN HISTORY IS NOT ONLY WRONG, BUT QUITE NEEDLESSLY DULL
    • ON WHAT'S TO FOLLOW

  • Chapter 2: Wicked Liberty

    • IN WHICH WE SHOW HOW CRITIQUES OF EUROCENTRISM CAN BACKFIRE, AND END UP TURNING ABORIGINAL THINKERS INTO ‘SOCK-PUPPETS’
    • IN WHICH WE CONSIDER WHAT THE INHABITANTS OF NEW FRANCE MADE OF THEIR EUROPEAN INVADERS, ESPECIALLY IN MATTERS OF GENEROSITY, SOCIABILITY, MATERIAL WEALTH, CRIME, PUNISHMENT AND LIBERTY
    • IN WHICH WE SHOW HOW EUROPEANS LEARNED FROM (NATIVE) AMERICANS ABOUT THE CONNECTION BETWEEN REASONED DEBATE, PERSONAL FREEDOMS AND THE REFUSAL OF ARBITRARY POWER
    • IN WHICH WE INTRODUCE THE WENDAT PHILOSOPHER-STATESMAN KANDIARONK, AND EXPLAIN HOW HIS VIEWS ON HUMAN NATURE AND SOCIETY TOOK ON NEW LIFE IN THE SALONS OF ENLIGHTENMENT EUROPE (INCLUDING AN ASIDE ON THE CONCEPT OF ‘SCHISMOGENESIS’)
    • IN WHICH WE EXPLAIN THE DEMIURGIC POWERS OF A. R. J. TURGOT, AND HOW HE TURNED THE INDIGENOUS CRITIQUE OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION ON ITS HEAD, LAYING THE BASIS FOR MOST MODERN VIEWS OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION (OR: HOW AN ARGUMENT ABOUT ‘FREEDOM’ BECAME ONE ABOUT ‘EQUALITY’)
    • HOW JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU, HAVING WON ONE PRESTIGIOUS ESSAY COMPETITION, THEN LOST ANOTHER (COMING IN OVER THE PERMITTED WORD LENGTH), BUT FINALLY WENT ON TO CONQUER THE WHOLE OF HUMAN HISTORY
    • IN WHICH WE CONSIDER RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE INDIGENOUS CRITIQUE, THE MYTH OF PROGRESS AND THE BIRTH OF THE LEFT
    • BEYOND THE ‘MYTH OF THE STUPID SAVAGE’ (WHY ALL THESE THINGS MATTER SO MUCH FOR OUR PROJECT IN THIS BOOK)

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  • Invidiarum [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    This book is infuriating. The descriptive parts are really interesting, but I wish they could have turned this “we will completely rewrite human history, why everyone else doesn’t have any clue” down one or two thousand notches. This seems to get a bit better in the third chapter, which I’m halfway through.

    While they didn't entirely convince me that what is reported of Kandiaronks speeches is completely and entirely accurate (I do find their reasoning a bit spurious and that they overstate how certain we can be) I now want to check these speeches out. They seem straight fire.

    Also it seems pretty damning of european society how all these missionaries share this experience of being told "why the hell would we want to be like you, look at your lives, they are shit".

    • RedCloud [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I agree on Kandiaronks, I don't really see how the authors thought a second-hand account of what he supposedly said, written like a decade after the fact by a guy who probably wasn't being particularly honest would be a good source to base a large section of the chapter on. But as you said, it was very entertaining reading his roasts of European society.

      I don't really mind the "completely rewrite human history" angle they've taken though. Obviously it doesn't really seem as spectacular as that to us, but then again they're preaching to the choir here. I think it would probably be much more illuminating for those who share more of their views with the likes of Pinker.