a book

Debt: The First 5,000 Years

Name: Debt: The First 5,000 Years
Rating: 5 (13 reviews)
Author: David Graeber
ISBN: 9781612194196

David Graeber · 2011 · 542 pages

The groundbreaking international best-seller that turns everything you think about money, debt, and society on its head—from the “brilliant, deeply original political thinker” David Graeber (Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me)

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 that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors—which lives on in full force to this day.

So says anthropologist David Graeber in a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom. He shows that arguments about debt and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debates from Renaissance Italy to Imperial 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.

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recommended by 13 people

sourced from public statements

Andrej Karpathy
“to-read”
Nassim Taleb
“In his book DEBT. Meanwhile, David, can you unblock Maximilian? He is an upright citizen.”↗
Seth Godin
“The most fascinating book I've read all year in 2015.”↗
Sarah Bond
“Two of my favorite books to teach together when lecturing on the history of ancient financial crisis & debt relief.”↗
Alan Cooper
“I am deep into David Graeber’s incredible book, “Debt: The First 5,000 Years,” and I have to say that it has blown my mind repeatedly with incredible insights & connections about civilization, religion, geopolitics, history, money, human nature, slavery, marriage, war, military,”↗
Vitalik Buterin
“"3. "Money always evolves in the following four stages, collectible -> SoV -> MoE -> UoA" - no, no, no! Seriously, read David Graeber's Debt. Amazon link for the lazy: https://www.amazon.com/Debt-First-5-000-Years/dp/1612191290"”↗
Miguel de Icaza
“@simped @paul_rietschka I recommend the book “debt - the first 5,000 years” to get a better grasp of why this is the case.”↗
Santiago Siri
“as someone who has read countless books on the history of money, “debt: the first 5000 years” is a masterpiece. an anthropological view that schools every single economist out there, breaking down the myth of bartering and going to the sources that conne…”↗
David Heinemeier Hansson
Mark Manson
Chris Fralic
John Ayer
Will Davies