The Dawn of Everything inspiration for Megalopolis film

In The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, David Graeber and David Wengrow describe three basic forms of human freedom: to move away, to disobey, and to transform the social order. Far from being a special achievement of Western civilization, they argue, these freedoms were available to a great many societies across the span of human history, extending back into our species’ prehistoric past.

Today, these same freedoms have been largely erased from the lives of most people, such that it is difficult for us now to even imagine what it might mean to live in a world based on such principles.

The volume has now become the, perhaps unlikely, inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola's new film Megalopolis which follows an idealistic architect with utopian dreams for New York City.

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• The Literary Hub

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021), which was named a Sunday Times, Observer and BBC History Book of the Year, has been translated into French, German, and Italian, and is due to appear in over 30 languages worldwide.   

Links

• David Wengrow gives the McDonald Institute Annual Lecture for 2023
• David Wengrow gives SAGE Lecture 2023
• David Wengrow gives Stanford University Distinguished Lectures (April 2023)
• David Wengrow gives Sigmund H. Danziger Jr. Distinguished Lecture in the Humanities 2022-23
• Venice Biennale Exhibition on concept of cities and urban origins

Image: Prof David Wengrow, UCL Institute of Archaeology (Image credit: Tom Jamieson)