In “The Dawn of Everything,” the anthropologist David Graeber and the archaeologist David Wengrow aim to rewrite the story of our shared past — and future. Graeber’s on the front page of the New York Times. Too bad he didn’t live to see it.
A good yet critical review of this book: https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2021/11/dawn-everything-new-history-humanity-david-graeber-wengrow-review
I like the book for the interesting stories of the various political formations of non-state societies, not necessarily for its vague, muddled, and arguably wrong conclusions. This review primarily discusses those conclusions.
Those Native Americans who had been in France, he wrote,
…were continually teasing us with the faults and disorders they observed in our towns, as being occasioned by money. There’s no point in trying to remonstrate with them about how useful the distinction of property is for the support of society: they make a joke of anything you say on that account. In short, they neither quarrel nor fight, nor slander one another; they scoff at arts and sciences, and laugh at the difference of ranks which is observed with us. They brand us for slaves, and call us miserable souls, whose life is not worth having, alleging that we degrade ourselves in subjecting ourselves to one man [the king] who possesses all the power, and is bound by no law but his own will.”
“In other words, we find here all the familiar criticisms of European society that the earliest missionaries had to contend with – the squabbling, the lack of mutual aid, the blind submission to authority – but with a new element added in: the organization of private property. Lahontan continues: ‘They think it unaccountable that one man should have more than another, and that the rich should have more respect than the poor. In short, they say, the name of savages, which we bestow upon them, would fit ourselves better, since there is nothing in our actions that bears an appearance of wisdom.”
HAHAHA.
Super hyped for this, Graeber will never not be the height of kindness, barely finished this before literally dropping dead. I expect that they just brutalize some settler shit.
Anyone know where to get a cheap copy??
“David was like one of those Amazonian village chiefs who were always the poorest guy in the village, since their whole function was to give things away,” Wengrow said. “He just had that ability to look at your work and sprinkle magic dust over the whole thing.”
:cri:
