For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike – either free and equal, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and David Wengrow show how such theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a reaction to indigenous critiques of European society, and why they are wrong. In doing so, they overturn our view of human history, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery and civilization itself.
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike – either free and equal, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and David Wengrow show how such theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a reaction to indigenous critiques of European society, and why they are wrong. In doing so, they overturn our view of human history, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery and civilization itself.
Drawing on path-breaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we begin to see what’s really there. If humans did not spend 95 per cent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they doing all that time? If agriculture, and cities, did not mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful possibilities than we tend to assume.
The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision and faith in the power of direct action.
‘Fascinating, thought-provoking, groundbreaking. A book that will generate debate for years to come’ Rutger Bregman
‘Graeber and Wengrow have effectively overturned everything I ever thought about the history of the world. The most profound and exciting book I’ve read in thirty years’ Robin D. G. Kelley
1 Farewell to Humanity’s Childhood
Or, why this is not a book about the origins of inequality
2 Wicked Liberty
The indigenous critique and the myth of progress
3 Unfreezing the Ice Age
In and out of chains: the protean possibilities of human politics
4 Free People, the Origin of Cultures, and the Advent of Private Property (Not necessarily in that order)
5 Many Seasons Ago
Why Canadian foragers kept slaves and their Californian
neighbours didn’t; or, the problem with ‘modes of production’
6 Gardens of Adonis
The revolution that never happened: how Neolithic peoples avoided
agriculture
7 The Ecology of Freedom
How farming first hopped, stumbled and bluffed its way around the world
8 Imaginary Cities
Eurasia’s first urbanites – in Mesopotamia, the Indus valley, Ukraine and China – and how they built cities without kings
9 Hiding in Plain Sight
The indigenous origins of social housing and democracy in the Americas
10 Why the State Has No Origin
The humble beginnings of sovereignty, bureaucracy and politics
11 Full Circle
On the historical foundations of the indigenous critique
12 Conclusion
The dawn of everything
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Chinese (Simplified)
Title: 人类新史：一次改写人类命运的尝试
First Published: 2024
ISBN: 9787522527949
Publisher: Ginkgo Book
Translators:
Yuxin Zhang
,Fan Zhang
Pages: 560Chinese (Traditional)
Title: 萬事揭曉：打破文明演進的神話，開啟自由曙光的全新人類史
First Published: 2024
ISBN: 9786263107038
Publisher: Rye Field
Translators:
Wenpei Lin
Pages: 744Croatian
Title: Zora svega – nova povijest čovječanstva
First Published: 2023
ISBN: 9789530623163
Publisher: Školska knjiga
Translators:
Katarina Ott
,Ivan Ott
Pages: 608Czech
Title: Úsvit všeho
First Published: 2024
ISBN: 9788075552044
Publisher: Jan Melvil Publishing
Translators:
Victoria Hanišová
Pages: 648Danish
Title: Altings begyndelse: En ny historie om menneskeheden
First Published: 2022
ISBN: 9788712059073
Publisher: Gads
Translators:
Uffe Gardel
Pages: 731Dutch
Title: Het begin van alles
First Published: 2022
ISBN: 9789493213616
Publisher: Maven
Translators:
Bart Gravendaal
,Rogier van Kappel
Pages: 656English
Title: The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
First Published: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 978-1250858801
Publisher: Picador Paper
Pages: 720
Estonian
Title: Kõigi asjade koidik
First Published: 2023
ISBN: 9789916736081
Publisher: Postimehe Kirjastus
Translators:
Andreas Ardus
Pages: 784Finnish
Title: Alussa Oli...Ihmiskunnan uusi historia
First Published: 2022
ISBN: 9789523632356
Publisher: Teos
Translators:
Anna Tuomikoski
Pages: 677French
Title: Au commencement était: Une nouvelle histoire de l'humanité
First Published: 2021
ISBN: 9791020910301
Publisher: Les Liens Qui Liberent
Translators:
Élise Roy
Pages: 752Greek
Title: Η αυγή των πάντων: Μια καινούρια ιστορία της ανθρωπότητας
First Published: 2023
ISBN: 9789606539831
Publisher: Dioptra
Translators:
Christodoulos Litharis
Pages: 784Hungarian
Title: Mindenek hajnala - Az emberiség új története
First Published: 2025
ISBN: 9789634798859
Publisher: Helikon Kiadó
Translators:
Ábrahám Zoltán
,Tóth Gábor
Pages: 688Italian
Title: L'alba di tutto. Una nuova storia dell'umanità
First Published: 2023
ISBN: 9788817180924
Publisher: Rizzoli
Translators:
Roberta Zuppet
Pages: 736Japanese
Title: 万物の黎明
First Published: 2023
ISBN: 9784334100599
Publisher: Kobunsha
Translators:
Takashi Sakai
Pages: 708Norwegian
Title: Begynnelsen til alt: En ny fortelling om mennesket
First Published: 2023
ISBN: 9788202805036
Publisher: Cappelen Damm
Translators:
Hege Mehren
Pages: 736Polish
Title: Narodziny wszystkiego. Nowa historia ludzkości
First Published: 2022
ISBN: 9788382027099
Publisher: Zysk
Translators:
Robert Filipowski
Pages: 672Portuguese (Brazil)
Title: O despertar de tudo: Uma nova história da humanidade
First Published: 2022
ISBN: 9786559211722
Publisher: Companhia das Letras
Translators:
Denise Bottmann
Pages: 696Portuguese (Portugal)
Title: O Princípio de Tudo: Uma nova história da humanidade
First Published: 2022
ISBN: 9789722543637
Publisher: Bertrand Editora
Translators:
Sara M. Felício
,Claudio Marcondes
Pages: 728Romanian
Title: Zorii tuturor lucrurilor. O noua istorie a omenirii
First Published: 2022
ISBN: 9789734687886
Publisher: Editura Polirom
Translators:
Miruna Munteanu
Pages: 544Russian
Title: Заря всего. Новая история человечества
First Published: 2024
ISBN: 9785911038113
Publisher: Ad Marginem
Translators:
Konstantin Mitroshenkov
Pages: 1167Serbian
Title: Zora svega: Nova istorija čovečanstva
First Published: 2024
ISBN: 9788610051216
Publisher: Vulkan
Translators:
Marko Sinđić
Pages: 591Slovak
Title: Počiatok všetkého: Nová história ľudstva
First Published: 2023
ISBN: 9788022214025
Publisher: Tatran
Translators:
Pavol Sveda
Pages: 672Slovene
Title: Pričetek vsega: Nova zgodovina človeštva
First Published: 2022
ISBN: 9789617136470
Publisher: Umco
Translators:
Samo Kuščer
Pages: 769Spanish
Title: El amanecer de todo: una nueva historia de la humanidad
First Published: 2022
ISBN: 9788434435728
Publisher: Ariel / Planeta
Translators:
Joan Andreano Weyland
Pages: 848Swedish
Title: Början på allt: En ny historia om mänskligheten
First Published: 2022
ISBN: 9789179652562
Publisher: Volante
Translators:
Pages: 773
Human History Gets a Rewrite
A brilliant new account upends bedrock assumptions about 30,000 years of change.
By William Deresiewicz
THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING A NEW HISTORY OF HUMANITY
A fascinating, intellectually challenging big book about big ideas
Choosing Civilization
Seeking to change the present by reinterpreting the past, a new book puts its agenda before accuracy.
Robert Henderson
November 19, 2021 The Social Order
The Radical Promise of Human History
Boston Review
A sweeping new history of humanity upends the story of civilization, inviting us to imagine how our own societies could be radically different.
Emily Kern
Early Civilizations Had It All Figured Out
A contrarian account of our prehistory argues that cities once flourished without rulers and rules—and still could.
By Gideon Lewis-Kraus
November 1, 2021
David Graeber Knew Ordinary People Could Remake the World
A new book by David Wengrow and the late David Graeber is a brilliant rejection of the fatalistic myths of human history — and a defense of our power to shape our own world.
Review of The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow (Allen Lane, 2021)
David Graeber and David Wengrow’s Anarchist History of Humanity
Beyond the State
David Graeber and David Wengrow’s anarchist history of humanity.
By Daniel Immerwahr SEPTEMBER 20, 2021
Were the Earliest Societies Anarchists?
David Graeber and David Wengrow’s new history of humanity looks for the origins of authoritarianism and freedom.
Digging for Utopia
In The Dawn of Everything David Graeber and David Wengrow search for historical examples of nonhierarchical societies to justify their anarchist vision of human freedom. But must we find our future in the past?
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow review — how Sapiens got it wrong
Everyone from Yuval Noah Harari to Steven Pinker is savaged in this revolutionary look at where we came from
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow review – have we got our ancestors wrong?
This imaginative attempt to reconfigure humanity’s roots contends that early people were free to shape their own lives
How fear makes us human
The late David Graeber’s history of early human societies presents civilisation as a descent from anarchy into servility. But was man ever free?
‘The Dawn of Everything’ rewrites 40,000 years of human history
A new book recasts social evolution as surprisingly varied
Social evolution, from Ice Age hunter-gatherer networks to ancient Egypt’s pyramid-building dynasties and beyond, gets reinterpreted in a new book as a series of flexible systems that didn’t inevitably produce rampant inequality.
OSAMA ELSAYED/UNSPLASH
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
“This sweeping and novel synthesis exploring the arc of the human condition— its highly diverse forms of political organizing, and the future that lays in store for us—may well prove to be the most important book of the decade. For it explodes deeply held myths about the inevitability of our social lives dominated by the state.”
The Guardian, “The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow review – inequality is not the price of civilisation”
An archaeologist and an anthropologist dismantle received wisdom about the way early societies operated
By David Priestland, October 23, 2021
Reflecting on the Dawn of Everything
The Tragedy of the Spiritual Commons: review of The Dawn of Everything by Davids Graeber and Wengrow
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow
After 200,000 years, we’re still trying to figure out what humanity is all about
The Dawn of Everything
An essential reminder that we are in charge of our own destiny.
David Graeber’s Anthropology of Human Possibilities
This essay offers a close reading of David Graeber's posthumously published magnum opus The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021), which he co‐authored with David Wengrow. The essay engages critically with the concepts of “humanity” and “freedom” that The Dawn of Everything advances.
Unearthing a new origin of inequalities
The beginning of everything: a new narrative to break with myths about the evolution of human societies
Sara Santilli about “The Dawn of Everything”
4 Sept 2025
Rethinking Human Nature: Between Cooperation, Trust, and Social Justice
Human Rights Center Antonio Papisca
unipd-centrodirittiumani.it
Ruthanna Emrys about “The Dawn of Everything”
21 Oct 2025
Wengrow and Graeber’s The Dawn of Everything Isn’t Always Right, But Is Always Interesting
reactormag.com
Анархооптимизм и история человечества
Юлия Штутина — о книге Дэвида Гребера и Дэвида Венгроу «Заря всего»
Обзор книги “Заря всего. Новая история человечества” Дэвида Гребера и Дэвида Уэнгроу
Издательство AdMarginem выпустило перевод книги «Заря всего. Новая история человечества» написанную антропологом Дэвидом Гребером и археологом Дэвидом Уэнгроу. Научным редактором перевода выступил магистрант факультета антропологии Григорий Винокуров, а познакомит читателя с текстом обзор книги от аспиранта нашего факультета Дениса Гаврусева.
Steve Denning on Forbes about “The Dawn”
29 Oct 2025
Progress Redefined: How Ancients Also Chose Value Creation Principles
Anders Högberg about “The Dawn of Everything”
2023
David Graeber and David Wengrow. Början på allt: En ny historia om mänskligheten
Fornvännen (Swedish academic journal of archaeology and early art history)
Johan Örestig about “The Dawn of Everything”
30 Dec 2022
Början på allt – eller inget?
Johan Örestig gör en kritisk läsning av Graebers och Wengrows nya historia om mänskligheten
rodarummet.org
Rasmus Fleischer about “The Dawn of Everything”
1 Nov 2022
Storslaget nytänkande om människans förhistoria
flamman.se
Karin Pettersson about “The Dawn of Everything”
2022
Allt du har lärt dig om historien kan vara fel
Med ”Början på allt” vidgar David Wengrow och David Graeber vår syn på både gårdagen och framtiden
Aftonbladet
aftonbladet.se
Hans Ruin about “The Dawn of Everything”
2023
Vår ojämlikhet är långtifrån självklar
Svenska Dagbladet www.svd.se
Bruno Hamnell about “The Dawn of Everything”
2025
Förhistoriens börda, framtidens öppenhet
Blog "Efter humanismen"
efterhumanismen.com
Jonas Hansen Meyer about “Dawn”
26 Oct 2022
Gjør historien rikere
Denne mursteinen knuser mytene om menneskets tidlige historie.
nrk.no
Claudio Sopranzetti on David Graeber’s work on Sage Journals
10 Apr 2025
David Graeber's rhythm of developing thought: On poetics, imagination, and estrangement
David Swanson about “The Dawn of Everything”
30 Nov 2021
Pārdomājot visa rītausmu
worldbeyondwar.org
Aivar Kriiska about “The Dawn”
Dec 2024
Koidikuaegsed asjad ja asjaajamised.
David Graeberi ja David Wengrow’ kirglikkus võidelda inimkonna arenguetappide ja Turgot’lt pärineva „evolutsioonilise hullusärgi“ vastu on imetlusväärne.
Published in Sirp
Audio review about “The Dawn” and “Debt” in Tartu, kirjanduslik teisipäev
2024
Mihkel Kunnus, Siim Lill
Tartu City of Literature / Kirjanduslinn Tartu.
Kirjanduslik teisipäev
