The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

by David Graeber

It’s hardly surprising, perhaps, that most people feel a spontaneous affinity with the tragic version of the story, and not just because of its scriptural roots. The more rosy, optimistic narrative – whereby the progress of Western civilization inevitably makes everyone happier, wealthier and more secure – has at least one obvious disadvantage. It fails to explain why that civilization did not simply spread of its own accord; that is, why European powers should have been obliged to spend the last 500 or so years aiming guns at people’s heads in order to force them to adopt it. (Also, if being in a ‘savage’ state was so inherently miserable, why so many of those same Westerners, given an informed choice, were so eager to defect to it at the earliest opportunity.)