Thanks to the Seattle Public Library I finally was able to check out The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, by David Graeber and David Wengrow. It's a weighty topic, revisiting human history using indigenous texts and reexamining archaeological discoveries and questioning assumptions. How did I not realize that yes, there are contemporaneous texts from indigenous leaders who encountered the white Europeans descending on North America? Of course there are, and the indigenous Americans didn't think much of the Europeans' way of interacting with each other, the striving and cheating and stealing. The authors also noodle over ideas of equality and freedom and how those were expressed in various civilizations. They posit that humans a thousand years ago traveled more and farther than humans today. And so on.
Anyway, 300 pages in I realized the e-book was due back at SPL in a day.
And I realized, it's an 1100 page book and there was no way to plow through 800 pages in a day.
So, I'm on the hunt for another copy via other libraries, back on the SPL waiting list and hoping to get back to reading soon. It's that good of a book.
In the meantime, here are thoughts.
Pro: Atlantic
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