Anthropologist David Graeber and archaeologist David Wengrow are behind what can be called last year’s non-fiction sensation. In “The beginning of everything”, the authors offer an alternative to the many bestsellers that have given readers clear and often simplified theories about the development of humanity. Graeber and Wengrow tell a different story – if not other stories – in this monumental book, which stimulates both the imagination and the thinking. Serpents in paradise Humanity’s origin stories often come in one of two variants. In one, one imagines that people in early hunter-gatherer societies lived in harmony with nature, and that equality and harmony prevailed. With agriculture, private property rights were invented. Thus all hell broke loose and the foundation laid for the unjust and hierarchical world order we still struggle with. This understanding of history can be traced back to the Swiss philosopher Rousseau with many modern followers, such as the writer Yuval Noah Harari in the box office success “Sapiens – a short history of mankind”. The other variant, often linked to the philosopher Hobbes, says, on the contrary, that man’s early beginnings were chaotic and cruel. We lived short lives in brutal struggle with existence. Modern civilization then helped man to tame the forces of chaos and made it possible to develop art, philosophy and science. Unfortunately, the price to pay was power hierarchies and economic inequality. But the alternative is much worse, like to remind those who stick with this theory. Graeber and Wengrow counter that not only are both of these narratives simply wrong, but they also have troubling political implications. Moreover, it makes the past unnecessarily boring, the authors believe. They launch well-founded counter-arguments, with archaeological material produced in the last 40 years as a basis. Political awareness from day one “The beginning of everything” shows that the introduction of agriculture did not represent a watershed in history. Some societies relied on agriculture for parts of the year, hunting for others. Still others actively opted out of farming after trying it for a while. The book also convincingly argues against the notion that earlier people were naive and innocent or so-called “noble savages”. Political awareness, on the other hand, has been a decisive feature of man long before the first state formations. Graeber and Wengrow make it clear that when very many people lived permanently in the same area, it did not necessarily lead to a monopoly of violence and bureaucracy. SOCIAL HOUSING: The Mexican city of Teotihuacan changed building practices in the 4th century. Away with grandiose monuments for the elite, in with domesticity for most people, describe the authors of “The beginning of everything”. Photo: RUSSELL BOYCE / Reuters One of several examples came to the surface when excavations in today’s Ukraine, in the highly fertile “black soil”, uncovered so-called “mega-sites” from as far back as the fourth millennium BC. These gigantic settlements show no signs of having had any centralized government or administration. Another exciting example is the urban community of Teotihuacan in present-day Mexico, which in the fourth century stopped human sacrifice and the construction of grandiose monuments and initiated what Graeber and Wengrow interpret as social housing construction: The examples are numerous and span a large period of time. Read to devour or to use “The beginning of everything” is a real brick at 700 pages, but it is both captivating and easy to read. You can definitely get a lot out of reading the whole book, but I also want to strike a blow for the selective reading. Many of the individual chapters stand well on their own. For example, the terrific second chapter provides new perspectives on 18th-century Enlightenment thinking by including indigenous critiques of Western imperialism and ways of life. The chapter differs from the rest of the book, and it can be reminiscent of what an author such as Indian Pankaj Mishra does in the book “The Age of Rage”. The summary chapter can also be read on its own, with very exciting discussions of violence and war. The anarchist’s dream Although the authors do not attempt to provide solutions for the future, there is nevertheless a political red thread in the book. By showing the great diversity in history, the authors will show that the current situation is not the only possible one. Through the stories of early societies that managed without dominant hierarchies, the authors will suggest that this may also be possible today. In this connection, it may be worth mentioning that the most famous of the authors, David Graeber, was an anarchist and central to the “Occupy Wall Street” movement a few years ago. It is probably not just imagination that the authors radiate joy when they find traces in the past that may suggest social revolutions or settlements with elites. ACTIVE IN “OCCUPY WALL STREET”: The most famous of the authors, the anthropologist David Graeber, died unexpectedly and suddenly in 2020. He has previously written, among other things, the book “Bullshit Jobs”. His co-author, David Wengrow is an archaeologist at University College London. Photo: MICHELLE MCLOUGHLIN / Ap It is also not surprising that the view of the present is distinctly gloomy. Graeber and Wengrow find little to be happy about in the neoliberal social order. First of all, we are stuck. In addition, it seems that religion is not particularly high on the agenda of the authors. “The sacred” is primarily a social construction that has contributed to the formation of power hierarchies. None of these possible sides actually make the book weaker. But one can wonder whether the authors are creating new myths that the next generation of anthropologists and archaeologists will correct. In any case, this is a discussion for the professionals. Dizzying depths It is enormously stimulating to read this effort of a book, which with its diverse examples and perspectives gives greater depth to the story. I was reminded of a poem by the Swedish Nobel laureate Tomas Tranströmer in which the arches of a Gothic church are compared to the human interior: “Inside you, vault after vault opens endlessly”. In the same way, Graeber and Wengrow show how human prehistory has unimaginable depths in it. It is more varied and more unruly than previously thought, and thus also more beautiful. news reviews Photo: Cappelen Damm Title: “The beginning of everything” Author: David Graeber and David Wengrow Translator: Hege Mehren Genre: Nonfiction Publisher: Cappelen Damm Number of pages: 729 Date: 20 October 2022
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“The beginning of everything” by David Graeber and David Wengrow – news Culture and entertainment
