PRETENTIOUS COMRADE’s Reviews > The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity > Status Update

we may in fact be seeing how very different kinds of power crystallise, each with its own peculiar mix of violence, knowledge and charisma: our three elementary forms of domination.

“We are at least trying to see what happens when we drop the teleological habit of thought, which makes us scour the ancient world for embryonic versions of our modern nation states. We are considering, instead, the possibility that- when looking at those times and places usually taken to mark the ‘birth of the state’-

Social power through violence, knowledge or charisma

Teotihuacan vs Maya schismogenesis