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Debt - Updated and Expanded

The First 5,000 Years

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Debt - Updated and Expanded

Written by: David Graeber
Narrated by: Grover Gardner
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About this listen

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.

©2014 David Graeber (P)2015 Gildan Media LLC Ancient Anthropology Economic History Economics Theory World

Critic Reviews

"Controversial and thought-provoking, an excellent book." (Booklist)
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The book is long and has a lot of historical info which makes it very interesting.

Too much information

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Debt is such an intrinsic characteristic of our human lives from actual money debt to karmic debt. This brilliant piece of work delivers on its promise of succinctly explaining the history of debt and its impact of culture and civilization as much on the economy.

Brilliant insight into human history through debt

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The idea of modern economics always bewildered me, from birth we are used to such systems yet we do not know how it came about. This audiobook of the great late David Graeber extrapolates on the exploits of homo sapiens in the pursuit of capital and the socio-economic changes that ensued.

The best there is!

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Extremely informative and thought provoking. It is interesting to think about the future of the debt- based economy and what will replace it

Excellent information

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the book is a. economic history of mankind itself

exceptionally well written, easy to understand and will change the readers' outlook to life itself

read the last chapter if you can't do the book

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