HUMANS Book Club: The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber & David Wengrow

Welcome to the Book Club on Wednesday June 24th, in Oodi Library, to discuss:
The Dawn of Everything / Alussa Oli (Part One: Chapters 1-6), by David Graeber & David Wengrow.

We know time is precious for many of our members, so we’re breaking this one up into two parts.

Published in 2021, The Dawn of Everything made waves by challenging received wisdom in anthropology, political economy, and popular history.

In this first session, we’ll broadly tackle the first half of the book. What is the origin of inequality (and is that even an interesting question)? What does a complex society look like? What does it mean to be free? These are just some of the questions that the book raises, explores, dissolves, or lampoons.

The way the book is structured means that each chapter can mostly hold up as a stand-alone text. So, even if you only have time to read one chapter, you will absolutely be able to join in the discussion! Likewise, if you cannot make this session but would still like to discuss the book, you can happily come to the second session without attending this one. The session will be in English.

Some thought-starters for discussion:
What do we think about Graeber & Wengrow’s framing of freedom, inequality, and power?
Are we ‘stuck’, in our current political, social, or organisational structures? How can we get ‘un-stuck’ (and do we even want to)?
What does it mean for organisations or individuals to define themselves based on what they are not, as much as what they are?
How might the prevalence of LLMs/ Chatbots affect dominant narratives of historical development or cultural change?
How could the structural arguments in the text be applied to our own organisational or business goals?