Summary:
In this age of intellectual sub-sub-sub-specialization, it
would be unfair to say that people have completely abandoned grand narratives
in their discipline. There are still brave souls who are willing to take on the
big picture and try to synthesize what is known in their field as well as
allied areas into a cohesive all-encompassing story. Stephen Pinker is a
prominent example of someone who has leveraged his expertise in psychology and
linguistics to fashion upbeat histories of humanity. But it would be fair to
say that it is unusual to encounter a book that takes on the world and
confidently asserts, “I think you have it all wrong.” To possibly be correct in
the claim would be rarer still. This book by Graeber and Wengrow falls squarely
into that small category.
The book has a bittersweet back story that only adds to its appeal.
It represents the result of a decade long collaboration between Graebner, an
anthropologist, and Wengrow, an archeologist. It originally started as pure
academic fun between two colleagues but quickly escalated into a serious
dialogue that culminated in a book with 83 pages of notes and a 63-page
bibliography. Sadly, Graeber died unexpectedly at age 59 of necrotizing pancreatitis
shortly after completing the work and did not live to see its publication.
The book has attracted a great deal
of attention because it takes on the accepted grand narrative of human
development, namely, a linear evolution from a primordial state of innocence
and equality to a society in which hierarchy and inequality are hard wired into
existence. The key step in this transition is the move from small groups of
hunter-gatherers to agriculture-based groups that gradually grew in size and
became more centralized in structure. This resulted in the prioritization of
private property and the consolidation of the population into cities that
mandated top-down control. Regardless of whether you invoke Rousseau as your
intellectual guide or Hobbes as your rationalization for a powerful sovereign
state, the traditional view is that you will reach the same endpoint, the loss
of equality. Graebner and Wengrow challenge this “myth.” Their operational method
is to examine the scientifically sophisticated data that have been gathered by
archeologists from prehistoric sites around the world. They conclude that the
prevailing view shortchanges human inventiveness in framing how people have
chosen to live and undermines our freedom to reconsider the way society is
organized. As an example of the scope and originality of the book, in the
second chapter, they argue that this Enlightenment notion of “noble savages”
and steady linear progress may have arisen among the French intelligentsia in
the 18th century in response to the interaction of North American
Indians with the French in the New World. Heady stuff that you thought you
would not have to think about after college.
The book is loaded with facts and details about burial
grounds, temples, houses, and playing fields that archeologists and
anthropologists use as the ground truth in their work. They document how there
was great variability and fluidity in social structure over course of the year
in prehistoric times, demonstrating that though men and women could not control
their environment they could do their best to adapt by alternating between
planting and food gathering before there were “farms.” In contrast to the view that agricultural
groups, with their need for defined plots of land, created the notion of private
ownership, they cite real world evidence from places as far flung as Poverty
Point in Louisiana to the Australian Western Desert that the sacred realm was
the origin of individual possession. They contrast in great detail the
lifestyles of communities living along the west coast of North America, in the
region from Washington State to northern California. The evidence is clear that
while the northern communities were hunter gatherers, patriarchal, more
warlike, and more ostentatious, those in the south were characterized by a less
showy land-based public sphere and a more peaceful demeanor that was reflected
in a greater role of women in defining the activities of daily living and social
structure. The communities were not isolated and had contact with one another,
underscoring the fact that the ways of life were active choices and not passive
default modes. The start of farming was gradual over thousands of years and was
not a revolutionary change, and prehistoric communities could switch their mode
of sustenance in the face of changing circumstances.
I will not have to take a final examination on the book so I
cannot say that I can repeat the names of all the Amerindian communities living
in middle America along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers or recount the details
of all the artifacts of and rites performed by the Mesoamerican civilizations. Graebner
and Wengrow discuss an incredible number and variety of archeological sites
throughout Eurasia and Africa, in addition to those in the New World, so I have
to take the authors’ recitation of the facts on faith. I am sure that some of
their interpretation is open to question by experts in the fields. But Graebner
and Wengrow will certainly get you thinking.
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