Debt - Updated and Expanded: The First 5,000 Years
David Graeber
Oct 2015 · Ascent Audio · Narrated by Grover Gardner
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17 hr 48 min
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Now in audio, the updated and expanded edition : David Graeber’s “fresh . . . fascinating . . . thought-provoking . . . and exceedingly timely” (Financial Times) history of debt
Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: he shows that before there was money, there was debt. 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.
Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: he shows that before there was money, there was debt. 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.
Ratings and reviews
5.0
14 reviews
Nate Borland
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November 20, 2021
A hugely important re-contextualizing of many aspects of human society that are taken for granted. A more humane world is possible.
Simona Ferlini
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June 6, 2023
a game changing book
Anil Das
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July 16, 2021
AÀA BOSS NETWORK
About the author
David Rolfe Graeber was born February 12, 1961 in New York. He was an anthropologist, anarchist, author, and a professor at the London School of Economics. He was an outspoken critic of economic and social inequality. He coined the phrase "We are the 99 Percent,' the slogan of the Occupy Wall Street movement." He earned his BA in anthropology from State University of New York at Purchase in 1984. He earned his masters and doctorate from the University of Chicago. He did ethnographic research in central Madagascar which he used for his PhD thesis (1997). He was a prolific author. His books included Debt: The First 5000 Years (2011), The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement (2013), The Utopia of Rules (2015), Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (2018), and in fall 2021, Farrar, Straus & Giroux will publish The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, written with David Wengrow. David Graeber died on September 2, 2020 at the age of 59.
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