The dawn of everything : a new history of humanity
(Book)

Book Cover
Average Rating
Contributors
Wengrow, D., author.
Published
New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021.
Status
Downtown Branch - Adult Non-Fiction
901 GRA
2 available

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More Details

Published
New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021.
Format
Book
Physical Desc
xii, 692 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
Language
English

Notes

General Note
"Originally published in 2021 by Allen Lane, Great Britain"--Title page verso.
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 611-673) and index.
Description
"A trailblazing account of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution-from the development of agriculture and cities to the emergence of "the state," political violence, and social inequality-and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation. For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike--either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, 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 eighteenth century as a conservative reaction to powerful critiques of European society posed by Indigenous observers and intellectuals. Revisiting this encounter has startling implications for how we make sense of human history today, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself. Drawing on pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive what's really there. If humans did not spend 95 percent 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 organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of human history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful, hopeful possibilities, than we tend to assume. The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society."--,Provided by publisher.

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Citations

APA Citation, 7th Edition (style guide)

Graeber, D., & Wengrow, D. (2021). The dawn of everything: a new history of humanity (First American edition.). Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)

Graeber, David and D., Wengrow. 2021. The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities (Notes and Bibliography) Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)

Graeber, David and D., Wengrow. The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021.

MLA Citation, 9th Edition (style guide)

Graeber, David,, and D. Wengrow. The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity First American edition., Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021.

Note! Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy. Citation formats are based on standards as of August 2021.

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