Once in a while when I have no idea what to read or I want to read something different I would browse my library’s skip-the-line collection via Libby. That’s how I read “The Dawn of Everything” by David Graeber and David Wengrow.
The book is 704 pages long so I would not attempt to summarise its complexity or analyse it. It sets out to examine the prevailing narratives we have for our own human history. Why is it so important that we examine these narratives? The stories we have about ourselves shape our culture, politics, economics, individual beliefs etc, and hence they shape our potential and our future.
The authors are not trying to prove that they are correct and the existing version is wrong. What they ask of us is that we learn more about it and question it – that human beings are diverse and hence our history contain multitudes and is complex – we cannot reduce what happened over thousands of years to one single simple narrative that applies to everybody.
For example, for the longest time we believed at some point of our history civilisations became a thing because we invented agriculture, therefore we had a ton of resources to feed people and armies – we need not be nomadic anymore to find food, so we did everything we can to hoard and grow this power, including mass violence on other human beings. Only people who belong to these civilisations are “civilised”, everyone else is “primitive”.
But anthroprology has come a long way. It is now suggesting that people we formerly thought of as “primitive” had creative, intelligent ways of life. Some of these people from indigenous societies were known to be highly intelligent:
Some Jesuits went further, remarking – not without a trace of frustration – that New World savages seemed rather cleverer overall than the people they were used to dealing with at home (e.g. ‘they nearly all show more intelligence in their business, speeches, courtesies, intercourse, tricks, and subtleties, than do the shrewdest citizens and merchants in France’)
…knew how to practice agriculture but simply chose not to:
Researchers in the 1960s were also beginning to realize that, far from agriculture being some sort of remarkable scientific advance, foragers (who after all tended to be intimately familiar with all aspects of the growing cycles of food plants) were perfectly aware of how one might go about planting and harvesting grains and vegetables. They just didn’t see any reason why they should.
…practiced sustainable farming:
What to a settler’s eye seemed savage, untouched wilderness usually turns out to be landscapes actively managed by indigenous populations for thousands of years through controlled burning, weeding, coppicing, fertilizing and pruning, terracing estuarine plots to extend the habitat of particular wild flora, building clam gardens in intertidal zones to enhance the reproduction of shellfish, creating weirs to catch salmon, bass and sturgeon, and so on. Such procedures were often labour-intensive, and regulated by indigenous laws governing who could access groves, swamps, root beds, grasslands and fishing grounds, and who was entitled to exploit what species at any given time of year. In parts of Australia, these indigenous techniques of land management were such that, according to one recent study, we should stop speaking of ‘foraging’ altogether, and refer instead to a different sort of farming.
Instead of fixed fields, they exploited alluvial soils on the margins of lakes and springs, which shifted location from year to year. Instead of hewing wood, tilling fields and carrying water, they found ways of ‘persuading’ nature to do much of this labour for them. Theirs was not a science of domination and classification, but one of bending and coaxing, nurturing and cajoling, or even tricking the forces of nature, to increase the likelihood of securing a favourable outcome. 50 Their ‘laboratory’ was the real world of plants and animals, whose innate tendencies they exploited through close observation and experimentation. This Neolithic mode of cultivation was, moreover, highly successful.
…balked at the Europeans’ constrained way of life:
Those Native Americans who had been in France, he wrote,
‘… were continually teasing us with the faults and disorders they observed in our towns, as being occasioned by money. There’s no point in trying to remonstrate with them about how useful the distinction of property is for the support of society: they make a joke of anything you say on that account. In short, they neither quarrel nor fight, nor slander one another; they scoff at arts and sciences, and laugh at the difference of ranks which is observed with us. They brand us for slaves, and call us miserable souls, whose life is not worth having, alleging that we degrade ourselves in subjecting ourselves to one man [the king] who possesses all the power, and is bound by no law but his own will.’
…practised political systems that we would not be able to imagine in modern times:
Most interestingly for our own perspective, he too stressed that the Plains Indians were conscious political actors, keenly aware of the possibilities and dangers of authoritarian power. Not only did they dismantle all means of exercising coercive authority the moment the ritual season was over, they were also careful to rotate which clan or warrior clubs got to wield it: anyone holding sovereignty one year would be subject to the authority of others in the next.
There are many more such examples that would be impossible to list. The book covers much more than correcting our collective misperception on indigenous societies. But this is not really a book review, but rather to contemplate how much we are individually and collectively influenced by what we know of reality.
Travelling changed my life dramatically. The first distinct memory was watching a bunch of kids play at a rural part of thailand. I was taught to believe that we need a lot of material things to be happy, but that moment made me realise that belief was wrong.
Later on I visited SF for the first time, which was also the first time I felt that it was possible to feel a sense of belonging, something I felt deprived of since I was cognitively conscious. In singapore (at least back then) I was always considered as the black sheep, the sore thumb sticking out. In SF it felt like the weirder you are, the more you belonged.
It didn’t matter what was the objective reality, if such a thing even exist. What matters is that some moments or insights can open our minds to a wider spectrum of possibilities. I am very much less romantic about SF now, but it was still the place that shook the foundation of my being and the world I existed in.
These experiences taught me that singapore was essentially a fish tank. If all I knew was that fish tank, then that was all I knew about reality. That means I had to live within the boundaries and social expectations of that reality. Of course it is always possible to go out of bounds, but it is really not that fun being an outcast and the subject of negative societal judgement. It is human nature to desire belonging and acceptance.
Living elsewhere made me realise I was simply trapped by my narrow perceptions of reality. I started to flourish in a very different environment than what I was born into. My previously negative qualities in singapore became what was celebrated about me. Just by being able to perceive and be perceived in new ways my reality became radically different. To open new doors we have to be capable of seeing those doors, and have the self-belief that we are capable of walking through them.
Similarly for the longest time I felt extremely pessimistic about humanity. I too, bought into the narrative of humans being “naturally” self-interested and territorial. I cannot say that I feel positive about humanity now, but I have more of a questioning spirit. Even if our future still seems doomed to me, it feels inspiring to know that we were not always like how we are now.
In developing the scientific means to know our own past, we have exposed the mythical substructure of our ‘social science’ – what once appeared unassailable axioms, the stable points around which our self-knowledge is organized, are scattering like mice. What is the purpose of all this new knowledge, if not to reshape our conceptions of who we are and what we might yet become? If not, in other words, to rediscover the meaning of our third basic freedom: the freedom to create new and different forms of social reality.
I guess the moral of the story here is to not be so fixated on what we know to be true, but rather cultivate an investigative spirit so we can keep learning, keep asking questions, and keep expanding our notions of reality. With new dimensions of reality comes new potentialities.
It would be nice if teenagers now get inspired by the book and become budding politicians who will shape our policies, but I think it is worthwhile to start at an individual level and question our limiting internal beliefs.
Before reading the book I had already known that David Graeber had passed away, due to covid (fuck covid). After reading the book I felt a profound sense of loss. They were planning to write at least 2 more books in the series. This book is not about the ultimate truth, but rather about opening up our minds, teaching us that what we believe is set in stone is not as solid as we thought. It is very much an anthropology book as much as a philosophical book. It feels buddhist, even. We could like or dislike David Graeber, agree or disagree with him – I think we need more of what he had brought to this world.
I had tried to read Debt: The First 5000 Years but couldn’t continue because it was too dense for me at that time, but this time around I am finally in the right mind to read The Dawn of Everything, so I feel encouraged to go back to it.
Once, I told my therapist that I felt existentially lonely, that I could not find people that had much in common with me. She encouraged me to participate more in online communities. Writing this I realised it is a consolation that I can find some solace from books, at the very least.
related resources
The dawn of everything
completed: 11 Aug 2025“In developing the scientific means to know our own past, we have exposed the mythical substructure of our ‘social science’ – what once appeared unassailable axioms, the stable points around which our self-knowledge is organized, are scattering like mice. What is the purpose of all this new knowledge, if not to reshape our conceptions of who we are and what we might yet become? If not, in other words, to rediscover the meaning of our third basic freedom: the freedom to create new and different forms of social reality”