Wengrow — “It is much the same with the question…”

Source: The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity — David Graeber & David Wengrow

Book page: graeber-wengrow-dawn-of-everything

From: The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity — Quotes


It is much the same with the question of inequality. If we ask, not ‘what are the origins of social inequality?’ but ‘what are the origins of the question about the origins of social inequality?’ (in other words, how did it come about that, in 1754, the Académie de Dijon would think this an appropriate question to ask?), then we are immediately confronted with a long history of Europeans arguing with one another about the nature of faraway societies