The classic work on debt, now is a special tenth anniversary edition
**with a new introduction by Thomas Piketty
**
**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. It shows how
debt has defined our human past, and what that means for our economic
future.
