How to interpret pre-history humanity: an argument against Rousseau and Hobbes

[anon_6hv78pr714xta]

I heard one of the co-authors of this book, The Dawn of Everything, interviewed recently here. I plan on reading this soon:

237. David Wengrow on The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

In this conversation, based on the book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, Michael Shermer speaks with professor of comparative archaeology, David Wengrow, about his pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology that fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human...

www.skeptic.com

Here's an Atlantic review of the book with an excerpt about what it does and covers:

The Dawn of Everything is written against the conventional account of human social history as first developed by Hobbes and Rousseau; elaborated by subsequent thinkers; popularized today by the likes of Jared Diamond, Yuval Noah Harari, and Steven Pinker; and accepted more or less universally. The story goes like this. Once upon a time, human beings lived in small, egalitarian bands of hunter-gatherers (the so-called state of nature). Then came the invention of agriculture, which led to surplus production and thus to population growth as well as private property. Bands swelled to tribes, and increasing scale required increasing organization: stratification, specialization; chiefs, warriors, holy men.

Eventually, cities emerged, and with them, civilization—literacy, philosophy, astronomy; hierarchies of wealth, status, and power; the first kingdoms and empires. Flash forward a few thousand years, and with science, capitalism, and the Industrial Revolution, we witness the creation of the modern bureaucratic state. The story is linear (the stages are followed in order, with no going back), uniform (they are followed the same way everywhere), progressive (the stages are “stages” in the first place, leading from lower to higher, more primitive to more sophisticated), deterministic (development is driven by technology, not human choice), and teleological (the process culminates in us).

It is also, according to Graeber and Wengrow, completely wrong. Drawing on a wealth of recent archaeological discoveries that span the globe, as well as deep reading in often neglected historical sources (their bibliography runs to 63 pages), the two dismantle not only every element of the received account but also the assumptions that it rests on. Yes, we’ve had bands, tribes, cities, and states; agriculture, inequality, and bureaucracy, but what each of these were, how they developed, and how we got from one to the next—all this and more, the authors comprehensively rewrite. More important, they demolish the idea that human beings are passive objects of material forces, moving helplessly along a technological conveyor belt that takes us from the Serengeti to the DMV. We’ve had choices, they show, and we’ve made them. Graeber and Wengrow offer a history of the past 30,000 years that is not only wildly different from anything we’re used to, but also far more interesting: textured, surprising, paradoxical, inspiring.

Human History Gets a Rewrite

A brilliant new account upends bedrock assumptions about 30,000 years of change.

www.theatlantic.com

I'm not sure where this discussion will go or whether anyone will think this retelling of human history interesting but it seems like an important thing.

 

[Univee2]

I heard one of the co-authors of this book, The Dawn of Everything, interviewed recently here. I plan on reading this soon:

237. David Wengrow on The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

In this conversation, based on the book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, Michael Shermer speaks with professor of comparative archaeology, David Wengrow, about his pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology that fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human...

www.skeptic.com

Here's an Atlantic review of the book with an excerpt about what it does and covers:

The Dawn of Everything is written against the conventional account of human social history as first developed by Hobbes and Rousseau; elaborated by subsequent thinkers; popularized today by the likes of Jared Diamond, Yuval Noah Harari, and Steven Pinker; and accepted more or less universally. The story goes like this. Once upon a time, human beings lived in small, egalitarian bands of hunter-gatherers (the so-called state of nature). Then came the invention of agriculture, which led to surplus production and thus to population growth as well as private property. Bands swelled to tribes, and increasing scale required increasing organization: stratification, specialization; chiefs, warriors, holy men.

Eventually, cities emerged, and with them, civilization—literacy, philosophy, astronomy; hierarchies of wealth, status, and power; the first kingdoms and empires. Flash forward a few thousand years, and with science, capitalism, and the Industrial Revolution, we witness the creation of the modern bureaucratic state. The story is linear (the stages are followed in order, with no going back), uniform (they are followed the same way everywhere), progressive (the stages are “stages” in the first place, leading from lower to higher, more primitive to more sophisticated), deterministic (development is driven by technology, not human choice), and teleological (the process culminates in us).

It is also, according to Graeber and Wengrow, completely wrong. Drawing on a wealth of recent archaeological discoveries that span the globe, as well as deep reading in often neglected historical sources (their bibliography runs to 63 pages), the two dismantle not only every element of the received account but also the assumptions that it rests on. Yes, we’ve had bands, tribes, cities, and states; agriculture, inequality, and bureaucracy, but what each of these were, how they developed, and how we got from one to the next—all this and more, the authors comprehensively rewrite. More important, they demolish the idea that human beings are passive objects of material forces, moving helplessly along a technological conveyor belt that takes us from the Serengeti to the DMV. We’ve had choices, they show, and we’ve made them. Graeber and Wengrow offer a history of the past 30,000 years that is not only wildly different from anything we’re used to, but also far more interesting: textured, surprising, paradoxical, inspiring.

Human History Gets a Rewrite

A brilliant new account upends bedrock assumptions about 30,000 years of change.

www.theatlantic.com

I'm not sure where this discussion will go or whether anyone will think this retelling of human history interesting but it seems like an important thing.

Not enough dragons.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

I am not sure that I would argue that agriculture caused us to change as many have, but I do think agriculture tended toward moving in a direction.

I see in reviews they accredit enlightenment in Europe to an American native, and that thought is widely disputed by many/most.

At the moment, I suspect they are right that pre historic man was more complicated than we give credit for. I even buy that some older civilizations were more egalitarian. For all it's warts, we know in Rome one could go from slave to emperor. But I think we make choices that the deck is stacked in favor of us making. They are not 50-50 choices. The DMV was skewed in favor of by agriculture, not preordained.

Now I have only used some reviews to judge the book, not having read it yet. But I may add it to my list soon

 

[CO. Hoosier]

I heard one of the co-authors of this book, The Dawn of Everything, interviewed recently here. I plan on reading this soon:

237. David Wengrow on The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

In this conversation, based on the book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, Michael Shermer speaks with professor of comparative archaeology, David Wengrow, about his pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology that fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human...

www.skeptic.com

Here's an Atlantic review of the book with an excerpt about what it does and covers:

The Dawn of Everything is written against the conventional account of human social history as first developed by Hobbes and Rousseau; elaborated by subsequent thinkers; popularized today by the likes of Jared Diamond, Yuval Noah Harari, and Steven Pinker; and accepted more or less universally. The story goes like this. Once upon a time, human beings lived in small, egalitarian bands of hunter-gatherers (the so-called state of nature). Then came the invention of agriculture, which led to surplus production and thus to population growth as well as private property. Bands swelled to tribes, and increasing scale required increasing organization: stratification, specialization; chiefs, warriors, holy men.

Eventually, cities emerged, and with them, civilization—literacy, philosophy, astronomy; hierarchies of wealth, status, and power; the first kingdoms and empires. Flash forward a few thousand years, and with science, capitalism, and the Industrial Revolution, we witness the creation of the modern bureaucratic state. The story is linear (the stages are followed in order, with no going back), uniform (they are followed the same way everywhere), progressive (the stages are “stages” in the first place, leading from lower to higher, more primitive to more sophisticated), deterministic (development is driven by technology, not human choice), and teleological (the process culminates in us).

It is also, according to Graeber and Wengrow, completely wrong. Drawing on a wealth of recent archaeological discoveries that span the globe, as well as deep reading in often neglected historical sources (their bibliography runs to 63 pages), the two dismantle not only every element of the received account but also the assumptions that it rests on. Yes, we’ve had bands, tribes, cities, and states; agriculture, inequality, and bureaucracy, but what each of these were, how they developed, and how we got from one to the next—all this and more, the authors comprehensively rewrite. More important, they demolish the idea that human beings are passive objects of material forces, moving helplessly along a technological conveyor belt that takes us from the Serengeti to the DMV. We’ve had choices, they show, and we’ve made them. Graeber and Wengrow offer a history of the past 30,000 years that is not only wildly different from anything we’re used to, but also far more interesting: textured, surprising, paradoxical, inspiring.

Human History Gets a Rewrite

A brilliant new account upends bedrock assumptions about 30,000 years of change.

www.theatlantic.com

I'm not sure where this discussion will go or whether anyone will think this retelling of human history interesting but it seems like an important thing.

There is a lot to think about here. I have been fascinated for years about different seemingly innocuous things that shape human history. Wars are obvious. But there is much more than that. And wrapped up with war is whether war is the cause or is it the effect of other historical forces. For example. the Mexican American war is barely mentioned in most US history books, but the effects on US history are significant. But for that war, most of Colorado might still be Mexico.

I recently read a book called the Brief History of Motion. The title is a little misleading because it is really the history of human transportation by wheeled conveyances. (The book is informative but it is also very preachy). The author's conclusion is that the automobile has a profound effect on the modern history of the US. how and where we live, work, and recreate. I don't know what I think about general human nature (if there is even such a thing) and the course of human history. I tend to think history is the product of individuals making decisions at important times that have profound effects. In the Motion book, Henry Ford was such a person. Until Ford's time, automobiles were solely for the rich, like private jets today. Ford put the car in the reach of everyone and that changed US history in a number of ways documented in the book. Hitler did the same thing in Germany with the Volkswagen.

Anyway thanks for the interesting topic, there are a lot of ways we can go with this.

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

I heard one of the co-authors of this book, The Dawn of Everything, interviewed recently here. I plan on reading this soon:

237. David Wengrow on The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

In this conversation, based on the book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, Michael Shermer speaks with professor of comparative archaeology, David Wengrow, about his pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology that fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human...

www.skeptic.com

Here's an Atlantic review of the book with an excerpt about what it does and covers:

The Dawn of Everything is written against the conventional account of human social history as first developed by Hobbes and Rousseau; elaborated by subsequent thinkers; popularized today by the likes of Jared Diamond, Yuval Noah Harari, and Steven Pinker; and accepted more or less universally. The story goes like this. Once upon a time, human beings lived in small, egalitarian bands of hunter-gatherers (the so-called state of nature). Then came the invention of agriculture, which led to surplus production and thus to population growth as well as private property. Bands swelled to tribes, and increasing scale required increasing organization: stratification, specialization; chiefs, warriors, holy men.

Eventually, cities emerged, and with them, civilization—literacy, philosophy, astronomy; hierarchies of wealth, status, and power; the first kingdoms and empires. Flash forward a few thousand years, and with science, capitalism, and the Industrial Revolution, we witness the creation of the modern bureaucratic state. The story is linear (the stages are followed in order, with no going back), uniform (they are followed the same way everywhere), progressive (the stages are “stages” in the first place, leading from lower to higher, more primitive to more sophisticated), deterministic (development is driven by technology, not human choice), and teleological (the process culminates in us).

It is also, according to Graeber and Wengrow, completely wrong. Drawing on a wealth of recent archaeological discoveries that span the globe, as well as deep reading in often neglected historical sources (their bibliography runs to 63 pages), the two dismantle not only every element of the received account but also the assumptions that it rests on. Yes, we’ve had bands, tribes, cities, and states; agriculture, inequality, and bureaucracy, but what each of these were, how they developed, and how we got from one to the next—all this and more, the authors comprehensively rewrite. More important, they demolish the idea that human beings are passive objects of material forces, moving helplessly along a technological conveyor belt that takes us from the Serengeti to the DMV. We’ve had choices, they show, and we’ve made them. Graeber and Wengrow offer a history of the past 30,000 years that is not only wildly different from anything we’re used to, but also far more interesting: textured, surprising, paradoxical, inspiring.

Human History Gets a Rewrite

A brilliant new account upends bedrock assumptions about 30,000 years of change.

www.theatlantic.com

I'm not sure where this discussion will go or whether anyone will think this retelling of human history interesting but it seems like an important thing.

Bookmark. I'm looking forward to engaging on this on my day off.

 

[mcmurtry66]

There is a lot to think about here. I have been fascinated for years about different seemingly innocuous things that shape human history. Wars are obvious. But there is much more than that. And wrapped up with war is whether war is the cause or is it the effect of other historical forces. For example. the Mexican American war is barely mentioned in most US history books, but the effects on US history are significant. But for that war, most of Colorado might still be Mexico.

I recently read a book called the Brief History of Motion. The title is a little misleading because it is really the history of human transportation by wheeled conveyances. (The book is informative but it is also very preachy). The author's conclusion is that the automobile has a profound effect on the modern history of the US. how and where we live, work, and recreate. I don't know what I think about general human nature (if there is even such a thing) and the course of human history. I tend to think history is the product of individuals making decisions at important times that have profound effects. In the Motion book, Henry Ford was such a person. Until Ford's time, automobiles were solely for the rich, like private jets today. Ford put the car in the reach of everyone and that changed US history in a number of ways documented in the book. Hitler did the same thing in Germany with the Volkswagen.

Anyway thanks for the interesting topic, there are a lot of ways we can go with this.

I remember reading Guns, Germs, and Steel years ago - and how those characteristics shaped the fortunes of people/nations

 

[anon_6hv78pr714xta]

I remember reading Guns, Germs, and Steel years ago - and how those characteristics shaped the fortunes of people/nations

If you listen to the interview with Shermer, you will hear that author go after Diamond.

"The Big History best-sellers by Harari, Diamond and others have their differences. But they rest, Graeber and Wengrow argue, on a similar narrative of linear progress (or, depending on your point of view, decline).

According to this story, for the first 300,000 years or so after Homo sapiens appeared, pretty much nothing happened. People everywhere lived in small, egalitarian hunter-gatherer groups, until the sudden invention of agriculture around 9,000 B.C. gave rise to sedentary societies and states based on inequality, hierarchy and bureaucracy.

But all of this, Graeber and Wengrow argue, is wrong. Recent archaeological discoveries, they write, show that early humans, far from being automatons blindly moving in evolutionary lock step in response to material pressures, self-consciously experimented with “a carnival parade of political forms.”

It’s a more accurate story, they argue, but also “a more hopeful and more interesting” one.

“We are all projects of collective self-creation,” they write. “What if, instead of telling the story about how our society fell from some idyllic state of equality, we ask how we came to be trapped in such tight conceptual shackles that we can no longer even imagine the possibility of reinventing ourselves?”"

What if Everything You Learned About Human History Is Wrong? (Published 2021)

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.

www.nytimes.com

 

[mrhighlife]

Aliens bro. Aliens started everything.

 

[anon_6hv78pr714xta]

An exchange in NYRB re this book:

Digging for Utopia | Kwame Anthony Appiah

That the history of our species came in stages was an idea that came in stages. Aristotle saw the formation of political entities as a tripartite process:

www.nybooks.com

The Roots of Inequality: An Exchange | David Wengrow

To the Editors: In The Dawn of Everything David Graeber and I present a new history of humanity, based on the latest findings in our fields of archaeology

www.nybooks.com

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

@BradStevens

I was doing some shopping today and B&N had all hardcovers 50% off, so I bought the book. I'm only 30+ pages in so far, but it's intriguing. I'll save any deep thoughts for after I've read it, and I also have some year-end CLE to finish these next few days, so it might be a while. However, I've read enough to tell that it's going to be an interesting take, and also that it's going to offer a historiography upsetting to some here.

 

[anon_6hv78pr714xta]

This book is getting a lot of blowback because Graeber is one of the authors. Here is a piece re the state of anthropology today that mentions the book without reviewing it that might lend some context:

Anthropology has turned its back on its legacy

Anthropology has turned its back on this legacy. It is a young discipline, dating by most accounts to the mid-nineteenth century

spectatorworld.com

 

[anon_6hv78pr714xta]

Some more unflattering discussion of the book:

Do Graeber and Wengrow know what they're talking about in "The Dawn of Everything"

MOVING TO FRONT, ORIGINALLY POSTED JANUARY 6--CONTINUES TO GENERATE INTERESTING COMMENTS (READERS MAY DISCUSSION THE RECENT LINKED CRITIQUES HERE AS WELL) When it comes to Rousseau and French Enlightenment, not at all. Their mistakes conform to Graeber's ideological agenda, however,...

leiterreports.typepad.com

 

[Cortez88]

OP I’m not ignoring your post it just calls for more time and thought than I’ve had time to give. I appreciate your efforts here.