Debt: The First 5,000 Years

Before there was money, there was debt. Every economics textbook tells the same story: 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 acclaimed anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom. He shows that for 5,000 years, since 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 that we first encounter societies divided into debtors and creditors. Ever since, arguments about debt and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debate from Italy to China - as well as sparking innumerable insurrections. Indeed, the language of the ancient works of law and religion (words like "guilt," "sin," and "redemption") derive from these ancient and nearly forgotten debates about debt, and shape even our most basic ideas of right and wrong. Without knowing it, Graeber writes, we are still fighting these battles today. -- Book Cover.