L’alba di tutto in dialogo con l’insegnamento della Storia

Sara Moreschi

Abstract:

This paper aims to focus on the insights that The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow can offer to the teaching of history in middle and high schools. The book under scrutiny not only provides engaging material that teachers can use to integrate textbook material, but also raises important issues for history teachers in schools, like the need to reflect on the educational impact that ethnocentric and teleological narratives may have on students, or the urge to explain the complexity of the past in order to enhance critical thinking and «comparative intelligence» in younger generations. This paper situates this reflection within the current debate on the role of history in Italian schools, recently reignited by a controversial ministerial document, released in March 2025, apparently reviving certain ethnocentric approaches to the past. Within this framework, revisiting some of the ideas set forth by The Dawn of Everything reveals as an opportunity to reflect on the educational value we can assign to the discipline of history in a global and plural world, opening up to a new dialogue with the past.