A new history of humanity
For generations, we have considered our ancestors to be simplistic, either free and equal or brutal and warlike.
We learn that we were able to create civilization only by sacrificing our primordial freedom or by taming our basic instincts.

David Graeber and David Wengrow explain how such theories first appeared in the 18th century as a reaction to the critique of European society by indigenous peoples and why they are wrong.
This book overturns the way we see human history, the beginnings of agriculture, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself.
The authors, based on groundbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, demonstrate that history can suddenly become much more interesting if we see what it really says.
If humans did not spend 95% of their evolutionary past in small groups of hunter-gatherers, then what were they doing all that time? If agriculture and cities did not plunge us into hierarchy and domination, then what did they mean?

The answers are often unexpected and show that the course of human history may not be set in stone but is more filled with entertaining possibilities than we tend to imagine.
The Dawn of Everything radically changes our perception of humanity's past and offers a way to imagine new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society.
A monumental work, the result of scientific curiosity, moral vision, and belief in the power of direct action.