Michael: Everything you learned about early human history—cavemen, the agricultural revolution, the rise of civilization—is probably wrong. Not just a little wrong, but fundamentally, politically, and deliberately wrong. Kevin: Okay, that's a huge claim to start with! Are you telling me my high school history textbook, the one with the very serious-looking mammoth on the cover, was basically a work of fiction? Michael: In many ways, yes. And that's the explosive argument at the heart of The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by the late, great anthropologist David Graeber and archaeologist David Wengrow. Kevin: Graeber, the same guy who wrote Bullshit Jobs and was a huge figure in the Occupy movement, right? So this book has a bit of an anarchist spark to it. Michael: Exactly. It's the product of a decade of intense collaboration, and it's a direct challenge to the idea that we're stuck with the systems we have. It was a finalist for the Orwell Prize for a reason—it's profoundly political. The book argues that for most of our history, we were far more creative, playful, and free than we can even imagine. Kevin: I like the sound of that. But where do you even begin to rewrite all of human history? Michael: Well, the authors start by attacking the very question we've all been taught to ask: "What are the origins of social inequality?" They say that question is a trap.

Kevin: A trap? How is that a trap? It seems like the most fundamental question you could ask about society. Why do some people have so much and others so little? Michael: Because it forces us into one of two stories, and both of them are dead ends. The first is the Thomas Hobbes version: that life in a "state of nature" was a miserable free-for-all, "nasty, brutish, and short." In that story, the state, with its kings and police, is a necessary evil we created to save ourselves from our own violent instincts. Kevin: Right, the classic "we need a strong leader to keep everyone in line" argument. You still hear that today. Michael: Constantly. The other story is from Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He imagined a world of childlike innocence, where small bands of hunter-gatherers lived in perfect equality. Then, one day, someone invented agriculture, drew a line in the dirt, and said, "This is mine." That was the beginning of private property, and it was all downhill from there into jealousy, competition, and inequality. Kevin: The fall from the Garden of Eden, basically. So we're either saved from our brutal nature or we've fallen from our innocent one. What's so bad about those two options? Michael: The book's point is that both stories, despite seeming opposite, lead to the same depressing conclusion: we're stuck. If Hobbes is right, we need the state to control our inner monster, so we can't get rid of it. If Rousseau is right, true equality is only possible in a tiny, simple society, so for a complex, global civilization like ours, it's a lost cause. Either way, radical change is impossible. Kevin: Huh. So both paths lead to a kind of political pessimism. But are they actually wrong? I mean, the Hobbesian view feels plausible when you watch the news. Michael: It does, but the archaeological evidence just doesn't support it. The book gives this incredibly moving example. Archaeologists in Italy found the 10,000-year-old burial of a man they call Romito 2. He had a rare form of dwarfism that would have made him unable to walk properly or participate in the difficult hunts his community relied on. Kevin: So in a "nasty, brutish, and short" world, he would have been left behind, right? Michael: You'd think so. But his skeleton shows that his community cared for him his entire life, into early adulthood. They fed him, protected him, and when he died, they gave him a careful, respectful burial, just like everyone else. This wasn't a society of selfish individualists; it was a society that practiced care. Kevin: Wow. Okay, that definitely complicates the Hobbes story. What about Rousseau's idea, that agriculture was the original sin that led to inequality? Michael: That's also a myth, and a much more persistent one. The book shows that the invention of farming wasn't a single event, and it didn't automatically create hierarchies. For thousands of years, people played with farming. They'd cultivate a bit, then go back to foraging. Some of the earliest large-scale farming societies, like the ones that built Çatalhöyük in modern-day Turkey, were remarkably egalitarian for over a thousand years. There were no palaces, no temples to a ruling class, just a dense city of similar-looking houses. Kevin: So planting a seed didn't automatically mean you'd get a king. The authors are saying the whole premise is wrong. We shouldn't be asking how we lost our equality, because maybe that's not what happened. Michael: Precisely. They argue we need to ask a better question: "How did we get stuck?" If our ancestors weren't trapped in one way of life, why are we? And to answer that, the book uncovers this forgotten history, a conversation that took place over 300 years ago that completely reshaped Western thought.

Kevin: A forgotten conversation? That sounds dramatic. What are you talking about? Michael: I'm talking about the moment when European intellectuals first encountered a sustained, intelligent, and devastating critique of their own society... from Native Americans. Kevin: Hold on. The usual story is that Europeans came to the Americas and saw "savages," and then projected their own fantasies onto them. Are you saying there was a real intellectual exchange happening? Michael: A profound one. The book focuses on a Wendat (or Huron) statesman and philosopher named Kandiaronk. He was a brilliant orator, a military strategist, and a master debater who spent a lot of time around French colonists and officials in the late 1600s. A French aristocrat named Lahontan recorded his dialogues with Kandiaronk and published them in a book that became a runaway bestseller across Europe. Kevin: And what was Kandiaronk saying that was so revolutionary? Michael: He systematically dismantled European society. He was appalled by their lack of freedom. He’d say, "You people live in terror of your superiors. You fear your captains, your priests, your king. We laugh at ours. A Wendat chief has no power to command; he can only persuade. We are born free." Kevin: That's a powerful statement. What else did he critique? Michael: Money. He saw it as the root of all evil. He has this incredible quote, which I have to read. He says, "I affirm that what you call money is the devil of devils; the tyrant of the French, the source of all evils... Fathers sell their children, husbands their wives... brothers kill each other, friends are false, and all because of money." He couldn't understand why Europeans would tolerate a system that created such misery and competition, where some people had far too much and others begged on the streets. For the Wendat, generosity and mutual aid were the basis of society. Kevin: This is blowing my mind. A Native American intellectual is essentially delivering a proto-anarchist, proto-communist critique of European capitalism and the state in the 1600s. And people in Europe were reading this? Michael: They were eating it up! It caused a sensation. For the first time, Europeans were confronted with the idea that their way of life wasn't the only one, and maybe wasn't even the best one. The indigenous critique, especially the value placed on freedom and equality, directly fueled the intellectual ferment that we now call the Enlightenment. Rousseau's "noble savage" wasn't just an invention; it was a watered-down, romanticized version of the very real and very sharp political arguments being made by people like Kandiaronk. Kevin: Okay, but if this critique was so powerful, what happened? Why did it disappear from our history books? Michael: Because it was also terrifying to the European establishment. And this is the book's most stunning argument. In response to this "indigenous critique," a French economist and government official named A.R.J. Turgot came up with a counter-theory. He basically invented the idea of stages of social evolution. Kevin: What do you mean, "stages"? Michael: Turgot argued that all societies naturally progress through a series of stages: from hunting (the "savage" stage), to herding ("barbarism"), to farming, and finally to commercial civilization, which was, of course, modern France. By doing this, he could dismiss Kandiaronk's arguments. He could say, "Of course you value equality and freedom, you're a hunter. That's what people think in the lowest stage of society. We, in our advanced commercial stage, have moved beyond that. Our inequality is a necessary byproduct of progress." Kevin: Whoa. So our whole model of social evolution—savage to barbarian to civilized, the one that justified colonialism for centuries—was invented as a political move to shut down a powerful critique of European society by an indigenous thinker? Michael: That's the argument. It was an intellectual counter-revolution. It allowed Europeans to put themselves back at the top of a ladder of progress and to dismiss other ways of living as primitive and backward, rather than as legitimate political choices. It effectively erased Kandiaronk and the power of his ideas from history. Kevin: So if that whole evolutionary ladder is a myth, designed to win an argument... what did the past actually look like? What's the real story that got buried? Michael: That's where the archaeology comes in. It shows a world that was infinitely more creative, flexible, and interesting. A world that was, in many ways, more free than our own.

Kevin: Okay, I'm ready. Show me this lost world. What does a politically creative past actually look like? Give me an example. Michael: Let's start with the Great Plains of North America in the 19th century. Tribes like the Lakota and Cheyenne had a fascinating dual political system that changed with the seasons. For most of the year, they lived in small, autonomous, scattered bands. There was no central authority, no one could give orders. It was a classic, free, anarchic society. Kevin: Standard hunter-gatherer stuff, right? Michael: Yes, but then came the summer. For a few months, all the bands would come together for the great buffalo hunt and major religious ceremonies. And during this time, they completely transformed their political structure. They became a single, large tribe. They appointed a council, and they established a tribal police force—often one of the warrior societies—that had real coercive power. They could punish people, confiscate property, even destroy a person's tipi if they broke the rules, like hunting on their own and scaring the herd. Kevin: Wait, so they went from being anarchists to having a state with a police force, and then back again? Every year? Michael: Every single year. And the crucial part is, they did it consciously. They knew the dangers of concentrated power. So the moment the hunt and rituals were over, they dismantled the entire structure. The police force dissolved, the council's authority vanished, and everyone went back to being free individuals in their small bands. They were self-conscious political actors, trying on different systems as needed. They weren't stuck. Kevin: That's incredible. It's like a company switching its entire management structure from a flat, creative mode to a strict, hierarchical one for a big product launch, and then switching back. They were politically bilingual. Michael: A perfect analogy. And this flexibility wasn't just for small groups. The book argues that even our biggest social invention—the city—didn't have to lead to kings and hierarchies. For this, we have to go to ancient Mexico, to the city of Teotihuacan. Kevin: I've heard of it. Pyramids, right? Michael: Massive pyramids. At its peak around AD 400, Teotihuacan was one of the largest cities on Earth, with a population of maybe 100,000 people. It was a sprawling, sophisticated metropolis. But here's what's baffling to archaeologists: there's no evidence of a king. Kevin: Come on. A city that big with no ruler? How is that possible? Michael: There are no palaces. No royal tombs filled with treasure. No monuments celebrating a great ruler's conquests. The art doesn't depict powerful individuals; it depicts anonymous figures in processions, or gods, or animals. And here's the most amazing part. Around the year 300, the city underwent a massive transformation. They stopped building giant pyramids and instead embarked on a project of urban renewal. They began building high-quality, standardized stone apartment compounds for nearly the entire population. Kevin: You're telling me they had a social housing program? In an ancient city? Michael: A massive one. We're talking about comfortable, spacious, well-drained apartments with courtyards and murals on the walls, for tens of thousands of people, not just the elite. It seems the people of Teotihuacan made a collective decision to reject authoritarian, monarchical rule and instead invest their resources in the collective good. They built a city for its citizens, not for a god-king. Kevin: A city-state focused on public welfare instead of a pharaoh. That sounds more advanced than many cities today. So we weren't destined for hierarchy at all. We've had these other models all along, hiding in plain sight. Michael: Hiding in plain sight is the perfect way to put it. From egalitarian cities to societies that changed their politics with the seasons, the evidence is overwhelming. Our ancestors were not the simple, brutish, or naive figures we imagine. They were our intellectual peers, engaged in complex political experiments for millennia.

Kevin: So when you put it all together, the book is basically a jailbreak for the historical imagination. It's saying the cage we feel we're in—the one that says states, inequality, and bureaucracy are the only way to organize a complex society—is a cage we built ourselves out of bad stories. Michael: Exactly. And that's the book's ultimate point. We aren't stuck. The story of an inevitable march towards inequality is a fiction, a political myth created to make us feel powerless and to limit our imagination. For 95% of our species' history, we were politically creative, fluid, and experimental. Kevin: It makes you think about those three basic freedoms the authors say we've lost: the freedom to simply walk away from your community, the freedom to disobey an order without consequence, and the freedom to create entirely new social realities. Those weren't some prehistoric fantasy. They were the norm. Michael: They were the bedrock of human social life for a very, very long time. And the book's final message is one of hope. It's not a roadmap telling us how to build a new world, but it's a map of possibilities. It shows us that if we want a more free, more just, and more playful society, we don't need to invent it from scratch. Kevin: We just need to remember that we've done it before. Michael: We've done it before, in a thousand different ways. And we can do it again. Kevin: Wow. That's a powerful thought to end on. It really changes how you look at the world around you. What do you all think? Does knowing this history change how you see our own society today? Let us know your thoughts. We'd love to hear them. Michael: This is Aibrary, signing off.