This is a big dense book packed full of crazy ideas. The effort to read it is definitely worth the pay off.
Unlike many grand narratives of society that assume that the endpoint of social evolution is the modern democratic/humanist nation state and work backwards to tell a story about what conditions gave rise to this glorious present, The Dawn of Everything assumes nothing. It simply lays out the evidence and shows how many different paths were possible and how many endpoints are still possible.
It discusses how domestication of grains didn’t necessarily lead all early societies to create large settlements where specialization and class hierarchies quickly developed. It discusses how power structures can emerge and how some early societies eventually rejected them.
It gave me some hope for the future because it leaves the door open for society to morph into something more just and equatable for everyone.
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