The Dawn of Everything: Rethinking the Story of Humanity

For centuries, we’ve been told a simple tale: our ancestors were either noble savages, living in harmony, or brutish warriors, bound by survival. Civilization, we are taught, was built on the loss of our original freedoms. But what if everything we thought we knew about human history was wrong?

In The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber and David Wengrow dismantle these long-held myths, revealing a past far more complex, diverse, and full of possibilities. Through groundbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, they challenge the idea that farming led inevitably to hierarchy, that cities demanded kings, or that democracy was invented only in modern times. Instead, they unveil a history of human societies as varied, creative, and dynamic as the people who shaped them.

What if history is not a linear path toward progress or oppression, but a playground of possibilities? What if the way we live today is not the only way it could have turned out? As the authors write, “The ultimate question of human history is not ‘What are the origins of inequality?’ but ‘How did we get stuck?’”

Provocative, thrilling, and deeply hopeful, The Dawn of Everything reshapes our understanding of the past—and, in doing so, opens new doors to the future.