THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING, a new history of humanity

691pp., paperback, Reprint, London, (2021) 2022

“Graeber and Wengrow have effectively overturned everything I ever thought about the history of the world. A thorough and elegant refutation of evolutionary theories of history, The Dawn of Everything introduces us to a world populated by smart, creative, complicated people who, for thousands of years, invented virtually every form of social organization imaginable and pursued freedom, knowledge, experimentation, and happiness way before the “Enlightenment.” The authors don’t just debunk the myths, they give a thrilling intellectual history of how they came about, why they persist, and what it all means for the just future we hope to create. The most profound and exciting book I’ve read in thirty years.” Robin D.G. Kelley, Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History, UCLA, author of Freedom Dreams: The black radical imagination

“The Dawn of Everything is also the radical revision of everything, liberating us from the familiar stories about humanity’s past that are too often deployed to impose limitations on how we imagine humanity’s future. Instead they tell us that what human beings are most of all is creative, from the beginning, so that there is no one way we were or should or could be. Another of the powerful currents running through this book is a reclaiming of Indigenous perspectives as a colossal influence on European thought, a valuable contribution to decolonizing global histories.” Rebecca Solnit, author of Hope in the Dark and Orwell’s Roses

David Graeber was Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics. He is the author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years and Bullshit Jobs: A theory, among other books. He died in September 2020.

David Wengrow is Professor of Comparative Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and has been a visiting professor at New York University. He is the author of What Makes Civilization? and other books. Wengrow has conducted archaeological fieldwork in Africa and the Middle East, and contributed op-eds to The Guardian and The New York Times.