James Suzman
On the Origin of Our Species
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
By David Graeber & David Wengrow
Allen Lane 704pp £30
‘One of the most pernicious aspects of standard world-historical narratives,’ according to anthropologist David Graeber and archaeologist David Wengrow, is ‘that they dry everything up, reduce people to cardboard stereotypes, simplify the issues … in ways that themselves undermine, possibly even destroy, our sense of human possibility’. The ‘standard’ narratives they have in mind are the broad-brush histories of humankind by the likes of Jared Diamond, Yuval Noah Harari and Steven Pinker, all of whom have enjoyed far greater success in shaping the public perception of our deep past than most academics could ever dream of. These works, Graeber and Wengrow argue, are nothing more than contemporary riffs on Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s vision of human history as a fall from primitive innocence or Thomas Hobbes’s opposing view that our history is an ascent from brute savagery.
Graeber and Wengrow set out to remedy this by proposing a ‘new history of humanity’, one that they intend will restore our ancestors to three dimensions by revealing them to have been social experimenters and dynamic makers of history. Their aim is to liberate us from the idea that
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm