The dawn of everything: A new history?

Abstract

This 526-page discourse is a reasoned argument for rejecting the notion of steady progress in the human past that challenges our assumptions about the origins of many aspects of modern human behavior, including farming, property, cities, democracy, and slavery. The authors take an anarchic position. They conclude that since we have organized ourselves in many ways in the past, so there are other ways of organizing ourselves beyond the current dominant model of hierarchical states. The authors draw from/reinterpret archaeological data to emphasize (politically anarchic) examples of freedom, play, and social equality. This bold, controversial book will provoke intense discussion.

Keywords:

• Human prehistory
• cultural evolution
• origins of modern human culture and food production
• anarchical approaches
• multidisciplinary anthropology

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Brian Fagan

BRIAN FAGAN, Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, is a specialist in world prehistory and the author of many books on archaeology and history, including The Little Ice Age and The Long Summer.

Nadia Durrani

NADIA DURRANI is the Editor of Archaeology Worldwide. She read social anthropology at Cambridge University and has a PhD in Arabian archaeology from University College London. Fagan and Durrani are coauthors of numerous archaeology books, including Climate Chaos: Lessons on Survival from Our Ancestors.