David Wengrow wins one of China’s most prestigious literature awards

David Wengrow's book, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, which he co-wrote with the late David Graeber (London School of Economics), draws on their decades of work in archaeology and anthropology to examine the origins of numerous myths and misconceptions about ancient peoples around the world.

The book seeks to dispel a range of mistaken beliefs that human ancestors were either free and equal, or thuggish and warlike, offering a more nuanced and broader understanding of human history, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery and civilisation itself. In the volume three basic forms of human freedom are described: to move away, to disobey, and to transform the social order.

The Dawn of Everything was first published in 2021, with a Chinese translation being released last year. 

The annual Wenjin Book Awards, given by the National Library of China, are considered one of the country's highest literary honours, with selected titles combining in-depth research with writing aimed at the general public. 

The Wenjin Book Awards are named after Wenjin Ge, a royal library from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) located in present-day Hebei province, which helped to found and contributed to the creation of the National Library of China. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the awards.

According to David:

“This is a tremendous honour to win such a prestigious award and a great validation of my work with Professor Graeber. It’s always been my goal to challenge unfounded beliefs about the societies our ancestors lived in. I hope that this recognition will help to further encourage people to broaden their understanding about archaeology and anthropology and seriously reconsider where some of the persistent myths about our origins originated.” 

Since its release The Dawn of Everything has appeared in numerous top-ten best selling lists and been was named a Sunday Times, Observer and BBC History Book of the Year in 2021. The book was shortlisted as a finalist for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2022 and more recently was also named as one of the inspirations for Francis Ford Coppola's film Megalopolis.

Read more

• UCL News 
• Wenjin Book Awards
• David Wengrow's UCL Profile

Image of David Wengrow by Tom Jamieson