"Originally published in 2021 by Allen Lane, Great Britain." -- Title page verso. Includes bibliographical references (pages 527-673) and index.
Contents:
Conclusion: The dawn of everything. Wicked liberty: the indigenous critique and the myth of progress -- Unfreezing the Ice Age: in and out of chains: the protean possibilities of human politics -- Free people, the origin of cultures, and the advent of private property (not necessarily in that order) -- Many seasons ago: why Canadian foragers kept slaves and their Californian neighbors didn't; or, the problem with 'modes of production' -- Gardens of Adonis: the revolution that never happened: how Neolithic peoples avoided agriculture -- The ecology of freedom: how farming first hopped, stumbled and bluffed its way around the world -- Imaginary cities: Eurasia's first urbanites-in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, Ukraine and China-and how they built cities without kings -- Hiding in plain sight: the indigenous origins of social housing and democracy in the Americas -- Why the state has no origin: the humble beginnings of sovereignty, bureaucracy, and politics -- Full circle: on the historical foundations of the indigenous critique -- Conclusion: The dawn of everything.
Summary:
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 by taming our baser instincts. In this volume, Graeber and Wengrow fundamentally challenge these assumptions and recast our understanding of human history. Drawing on pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors reveal how history becomes a far more interesting place once we learn to throw off our conceptual blinders 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 during all that time? If agriculture and cities did not mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic organizations 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 open to playful, hopeful possibilities, than we tend to assume. --From publisher's description.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.