Narrator: What if the story we’ve been told about human history is not just wrong, but a trap? A story that says we were once innocent, egalitarian hunter-gatherers, but the invention of agriculture doomed us to a future of inequality, hierarchy, and the state. Or, the alternative story: that life before civilization was a brutal, violent free-for-all, and only the firm hand of authority saved us from ourselves. What if both of these epic tales, the ones that underpin our entire political imagination, are fundamentally flawed?

This is the provocative question at the heart of The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow. The book argues that for tens of thousands of years, our ancestors were not passive figures on a predetermined path. Instead, they were politically conscious actors who experimented with a dazzling variety of social structures, and the real story of humanity is far more interesting, and hopeful, than we’ve ever been led to believe.

Narrator: The book begins by dismantling the foundational myths of human history, often framed as a choice between the ideas of Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Hobbes imagined a "state of nature" that was a "war of all against all," where life was nasty, brutish, and short. Rousseau, conversely, imagined a state of childlike innocence, an egalitarian paradise lost with the advent of private property. Graeber and Wengrow argue that both narratives are fictions that trap us in a false choice: either a brutal freedom or a safe but unequal civilization.

The evidence, however, tells a different story. The authors point to numerous historical accounts where individuals, given a choice, actively rejected European "civilization." Benjamin Franklin, for instance, observed a curious phenomenon in colonial America. When European settlers were captured and lived among Native American societies, they often refused to return when "rescued." In contrast, when Indigenous people were brought into colonial settlements, they almost invariably tried to escape back to their own communities. Franklin noted that even when offered comfort and wealth, the former captives found European life stifling and yearned for the freedom of the wilderness. This wasn't an isolated observation. It suggests that the values of European society—its competition, lack of generosity, and rigid hierarchies—were not universally seen as an improvement. The supposed "progress" of civilization was, for many, a step backward.

Narrator: One of the book's most powerful arguments is that the European Enlightenment was not a purely European phenomenon. It was profoundly shaped by a powerful critique of European society that came from Indigenous intellectuals in the Americas. For centuries, European thinkers have been portrayed as the sole architects of ideas about freedom and equality. Graeber and Wengrow reveal this to be a self-serving myth.

They introduce the reader to Kandiaronk, a Wendat statesman and philosopher from the late 17th century. Through the writings of a French aristocrat named Lahontan, Kandiaronk's brilliant and scathing critiques of European society electrified Europe. In recorded debates, Kandiaronk systematically dismantled European claims to superiority. He argued that their obsession with money was the "devil of devils," the source of all evil that led fathers to sell their children and friends to betray one another. He pointed out the absurdity of a legal system that punished the poor for stealing while the rich amassed wealth through exploitation. He contrasted this with Wendat society, which valued reason, generosity, and individual liberty. Kandiaronk’s central point was that European society, with its coercive laws and obsession with private property, made it impossible for people to be truly reasonable or kind. This Indigenous critique, the authors argue, directly fueled the debates about inequality that defined the Enlightenment. Thinkers like Rousseau were not inventing these ideas in a vacuum; they were responding to a powerful intellectual challenge from across the Atlantic.

Narrator: Conventional history presents our deep past as static. For tens of thousands of years, humans supposedly lived in tiny, egalitarian hunter-gatherer bands, unable to imagine any other way of life. The archaeological record, however, reveals a far more dynamic and experimental past. The authors argue that our ancestors were not trapped in a single social model; they were politically self-aware and moved fluidly between different social arrangements.

A compelling example comes from the Plains Indians of North America in the 19th century. For much of the year, tribes like the Lakota and Cheyenne lived in small, autonomous bands where individual freedom was paramount. However, during the summer, when the great bison herds gathered, they transformed. They came together in large encampments, established a formal legal code, and appointed a police force with the power to punish, imprison, or even execute those who broke the rules. They effectively created a state. But here is the crucial part: as soon as the hunting season was over, they dismantled the entire coercive apparatus and returned to their small, free-wheeling bands. This seasonal dualism shows an incredible degree of political sophistication. These societies understood both the benefits of centralized authority for specific tasks and the dangers it posed to their freedom. They consciously chose to adopt and then discard different political systems, demonstrating that our ancestors were not stuck, but were masters of social and political experimentation.

Narrator: The final myth the book dismantles is the idea that large-scale societies—cities—inevitably lead to rulers, bureaucracy, and the state. The story goes that once you have thousands of people living together, you need kings and administrators to manage them. Graeber and Wengrow show this is simply not true. Many of the world's earliest cities were profoundly egalitarian.

They point to the incredible case of Teotihuacan in Mexico, which at its peak around AD 400 was one of the largest cities in the world. Yet, archaeologists have found no evidence of palaces, no royal tombs, and no monuments glorifying individual rulers. Instead, they found something even more remarkable. Around AD 300, the city underwent a radical transformation. It abandoned the construction of giant pyramids and instead embarked on a massive social housing project, building high-quality stone apartment compounds for nearly its entire population. It appears Teotihuacan was a city that rejected authoritarian rule and consciously chose to invest its resources in the collective well-being of its citizens. It was a city without kings, governed by councils and neighborhood committees. This wasn't an anomaly. From the mega-sites of ancient Ukraine to the cities of the Indus Valley, the evidence shows that for thousands of years, people successfully organized large, complex urban societies without surrendering their freedom to a ruling class.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from The Dawn of Everything is that the story of human history is not a tragic fall from grace or a relentless march toward a single, inevitable form of society. Instead, it is a story of endless experimentation, political creativity, and a persistent struggle for freedom. The authors demonstrate that the fundamental freedoms—the freedom to move, the freedom to disobey, and the freedom to create new social realities—were once commonplace.

The book challenges us to ask different questions. Instead of asking about the "origins of inequality," we should ask how we got stuck in one particular social model. By revealing the diversity and dynamism of our past, Graeber and Wengrow give us the tools to imagine a different future. If our ancestors could consciously create and dismantle different worlds, why can't we?