The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Wengrow & the late David Graeber

NOTE: This event is full as of Friday, October 29, at 12:00 noon EST. If you signed up after this time, you may attend via the Zoom/livestream. The link to attend will be emailed to you the day of the event.

Co-presented by the Brooklyn Public Library, Greenlight Bookstore, and n+1

This is a hybrid event with some panelists on stage at Brooklyn Public Library, if health and safety allow, and others on Zoom. You can watch in person or on Zoom/livestream. 

What if the story we’ve been told for centuries about the origins of social inequality isn’t true? This question is at the heart of The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber and David Wengrow’s highly anticipated book that subverts common beliefs about social evolution and presents a radical alternative record of our ancestors’ lives, charting a path towards greater individual and collective freedom for our species. Join the Brooklyn Public Library, Greenlight Bookstore, and n+1 for a discussion of this surprisingly accessible, funny, and whip-smart new work, more vital than ever in this time of continuing and devastating inequality. Author and acclaimed archaeologist David Wengrow will be joined in person by Stephanie Kelton and Silvia Federici in a conversation moderated by Astra Taylor, addressing some of our most fundamental assumptions about human history––from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and civilization itself––and celebrating the legacy of Wengrow's co-author, the late activist and anthropologist David Graeber. Together these influential thinkers will discuss the pathbreaking research that led to a monumental book that is animated by curiosity, moral vision, and a faith in the power of direct action. Signed books will be available for sale. 

David Wengrow is a professor of comparative archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and has been a visiting professor at New York University. He is the author of several books, including What Makes Civilization?. Wengrow conducts archaeological fieldwork in various parts of Africa and the Middle East.

David Graeber was a professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics. He is the author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years and Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, and was a contributor to Harper’s Magazine, The Guardian, and The Baffler. An iconic thinker and renowned activist, his early efforts in Zuccotti Park made Occupy Wall Street an era-defining movement. He died on September 2, 2020.

Astra Taylor is a filmmaker, writer, and political organizer. She is the director of multiple documentaries including What Is Democracy? and the author of Democracy May Not Exist, but We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone and the American Book Award-winning The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age. She is cofounder of the Debt Collective, a union for debtors, and contributed the foreword to the group’s book, Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay: The Case for Economic Disobedience and Debt Abolition. Her latest book is Remake the World: Essays, Reflections, Rebellions.

Silvia Federici is a longtime feminist activist, scholar and teacher. In 1972 she was among the founders of the International Feminist Collective, the organization that launched the Campaign for Wages For Housework in the US and abroad. She has also been active in the anti-globalization movement and the anti-death penalty movement and was a founding member of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa, which for more than ten years documented the struggle of African students against the austerity programs imposed by the IMF and the World Bank on African countries. She has taught in the US and in Nigeria and is Emerita Professor of Political Philosophy and International Studies at Hofstra University (Hempstead, New York). She is the author of many book and essays on political philosophy, feminist theory, political philosophy, cultural studies, and education.

Stephanie Kelton is a professor and leading authority on Modern Monetary Theory, a new approach to economics that is taking the world by storm. She is considered one of the most important voices influencing the policy debate today. Her New York Times bestseller, The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy, shows how to break free of the flawed thinking that has hamstrung policymakers around the world. In addition to her many academic publications, she has been a contributor at Bloomberg Opinion and has written for the Financial Times, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, U.S. News & World Reports, CNN, and many others. She served as chief economist on the U.S. Senate Budget Committee (Democratic staff) in 2015 and as a senior economic adviser to Bernie Sanders’s 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. She is a Senior Fellow at the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis and a Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Stony Brook University.