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Title	:	Debt: The First 5,000 Years
Author	:	David Graeber
Book Format	:	Hardcover
Book Edition	:	Special Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 534 pages
Published	:	September 16th 2011 by Melville House Publishing (first published July 2011)
Categories	:	History. Economics. Nonfiction. Anthropology. Politics. Finance. Business

Debt: The First 5,000 Years

David Graeber

Hardcover | Pages: 534 pages

Rating: 4.16 | 11072 Users | 1439 Reviews

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Before there was money, there was debt

Every economics textbook says the same thing: Money was invented to replace onerous and complicated barter systems—to relieve ancient people from having to haul their goods to market. The problem with this version of history? There’s not a shred of evidence to support it.

Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom. He shows that for more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods—that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.

Graeber shows that arguments about debt and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debates from Italy to China, as well as sparking innumerable insurrections. He also brilliantly demonstrates that the language of the ancient works of law and religion (words like “guilt,” “sin,” and “redemption”) derive in large part from ancient debates about debt, and shape even our most basic ideas of right and wrong. We are still fighting these battles today without knowing it.

Debt: The First 5,000 Years is a fascinating chronicle of this little known history—as well as how it has defined human history, and what it means for the credit crisis of the present day and the future of our economy.

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Original Title:	Debt: The First 5,000 Years
ISBN:	1933633867 (ISBN13: 9781933633862)
Edition Language:	English
Literary Awards:	Bread and Roses Award (2012)

Rating Containing Books Debt: The First 5,000 Years

Ratings: 4.16 From 11072 Users | 1439 Reviews

Judgment Containing Books Debt: The First 5,000 Years

I haven't finished reading yet, and I will try to write a more substantive review of this book once I've had time to wrap my head around the contents, but until such time has come, I would simply propose to consider this book the new answer to Douglas Adams's Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything. If you've ever wondered whether there is a connection between -- to name just a few things -- simple social obligations, the invention of money, slavery, taxation, coinage, the

I have read many many books--I am a professor and it is my job to read. This is the only book I would label a "Must Read." It's that simple--everyone must read this book. It blew my mind--figuratively, of course. My area is banking and finance and so I am not unfamiliar with the standard banking story. But Graeber starts way before any other book I've ever read on the subject. By the time you get to modern banking and the bank of England, what you've been told is irrelevant. It's also just very

This is a book that made an impression on me. I will say right up front that it doesn't totally hang together. It sets out to make a step by step case, and gets carried away with its own ideas. It is intellectual for a popular book, but not tight enough for an intellectual book (which is probably fine by me). It attempts to sell you on a grandiose prediction or statement of where we are in the arc of history and where we are going at the end of the book. It is easy to get swept up in that

Whooh. For a while I was thinking, "Is there no idea that this guy won't rip apart?" Some really great thoughts about the history and nature of debt throughout history...right up until the present day. The last couple of chapters (the last 200 years or so) just weren't as heavy and thick with detail as the previous millenia. On the one hand, I can understand -- look, you just can't be an expert on the entirety of history, and writing about recent history would probably be the most challenging

This might be the most important book you read this decade. Graeber asks what the phrase "You have to pay your debts" really means, and his answer involves a looping historical, anthropological, linguistic, and philosophical inquiry into the nature of currency, coinage, and capitalism.As Graeber notes, the standard economic story of the development of coinage: that bartering diverse goods (potatoes for shoes for sheep for shovels) was so inconvenient that people developed cash to be more

As I was reading this I couldnt help thinking how much it reminded me of The Gift by Marcel Mauss. I got halfway through The Gift recently, and even though it is very short, I still got distracted with other things and havent finish it yet which, as the author of this says, makes me a bit like Mauss himself. I will finish it but almost dont need to now.This book is born out of a chance conversation about third-world debt the author had a woman at a party. She felt that paying ones debts was

Fantastic book. To quote the words of Arundhati Roy: "The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There's no innocence. Either way, you're accountable."Thanks for helping me see more clearly the true contours of the life we live. I guess I'm accountable now.