The Human Essence Is to Be Political, Right?

Sam Biagetti of Historiansplaining podcast joins me to discuss what's good, what's bad, and what's ugly in David Graber and David Wengrow's "The Dawn of Everything." We begin with an appreciative account of their dismantling of deterministic accounts of human social evolution, and then turn to a critical assessment of their theoretical assumption, their peculiar revisionist account of the Enlightenment, and their undervaluing of myth, ritual, and transcendence.

The Dawn of Everything: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374157357/thedawnofeverything

Listen to and support Historiansplaining here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632

Sam's cross-post of this episode has a useful list of other sources discussed: https://www.patreon.com/posts/dissecting-dawn-63996926