The authors begin the book with a chapter subtitled “Or, why this is not a book on the origins of inequality,” explicitly identifying their intentions from the start; this is not a book on the origins of inequality precisely because the authors argue that there are no specific, concrete, and singular origins of inequality (just as there is no origin of the city, or the state). Rather, what the authors intend to reveal over the course of the book is that early human societies—and underrepresented groups, particularly from the Americas—provide modern readers with a variety of examples of how human societies organize themselves. This is supported by a wealth of archeological and anthropological evidence that gives lie to the conventional wisdom that inequality is an inevitable result of sovereign rule, bureaucratic management, and political power, which often go hand-in-hand with the accumulation of private property and the inception of social classes.

Instead, the authors endeavor to demonstrate that, throughout human history and across the globe, human societies often organized themselves in egalitarian ways, and that the processes by which inequality and hierarchical structures come into play are various, regionally specific, and never inexorable. In fact, there is reason to believe—the historical evidence bears this out—that egalitarianism is equally a possibility for the organization of human societies.