The Dawn of Everything is a critical analysis of the current canons of history, targeting our perceptions of ancient societies as primitive, basic, or childlike. The authors establish a connection with out current understanding of these societies to an eighteenth century conservative reaction to any critique of western or European society.

My reason for picking up this book is actually to get a bearing and understanding of society and political systems used by those societies, mostly to use the book as a preamble to reading Caps Lock. Through most history books we are mostly taught about how our very ancient ancestors operated in mostly small groups of majority relatives, particularly before the conception of farming, which is commonly associated with the creation of ownership and private property. The authors refute that by bringing up many example and cases where society operated very differently even amongst themselves back then, with some practicing anarchism, some forming political parties, and others practicing private ownership.

Another major topic around the book so far is how the connection is drawn between the original theorists who created these concepts and the political implications they are used for today. For example, the authors talk about the various forms of lenses to which we commonly view humanity, which in this book are the Hobbesian and Rousseauian versions of human history. The authors argue that these perceptions of human history are used for convenience to conceive a chosen narrative of society as it develops. They use an example where one theorist and book writer argues that anarchism is impossible due to large societies inability to operate without leadership and organization, which the authors point out is not backed by any form of scientific evidence or research, contrary to the highly self-assured tone of those making these theories.

As I’m not too far into the book, I look forward to coming back to this and seeing how my perceptions change and how I view this topic. Something that has been part of my unlearning process as a graduate student is understanding that almost everything seen in the media, in books, or in history are of course written by people. These individual accounts and perceptions can often be in the pursuit of a narrative or end goal, that is to say everyone has an agenda of some sort.

In our primary and secondary school classes in the US, we’re often taught or shown example within our history books that are simply untrue, or are manipulated to change the perspective. Facts can often be conveniently overlooked to push a narrative of American exceptionalism or to reinforce individualism and patriotism. In my case, we weren’t given any opposite perspectives or accounts, nowhere would you find conversation on different political theory or ways to run a society. Any other societies talked about would be from a position of us being better than those we are critiquing, and the same could be said about religion, money, war, engineering, urban planning, cars, etc. etc. The list can go on and on.

I guess it’s thanks in part to how I was raised and my own curiosity that I branched out to other topics outside of our in school education, I’ve always been scrutinous of America, but as I grew I found myself frustrated and looking for answers on why everything felt so messed up. As I grew, I encountered many theories such as Marxism, Socialism, and Anarchism that have allowed me to enrich how I view the world. In a way, this book is exactly that, a way of enriching how we perceive society and humans throughout our entire history, not just the history that they want to tell. With a greater connection and understanding of this, I feel I can view the next series of books I plan to read more openly and gain more insight from them.