Professor of Comparative Archaeology at University College London. His research focuses on the fundamental questions of human history and culture, social change, and inequality. He is co-author of The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021), which was a finalist for The Orwell Prize for political writing, and winner of the 20th Wenjin Book Award.
The nexus of radical inequality, social atomization and male victimhood has been exploited before. But why now, on such a scale? To understand the appeal of the far right today we need to examine the origins of the fascist myth of primordial male kinship.
The story we have been telling ourselves about our origins is wrong, and perpetuates the idea of inevitable social inequality. David Graeber and David Wengrow ask why the myth of ‘agricultural revolution’ remains so persistent, and argue that there is a whole lot more we can learn from our ancestors.
