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Debt : the first 5,000 years / David Graeber

Author
Graeber, David
Published
Brooklyn, N.Y. : Melville House, [2011]
Copyright Date
©2011
Physical Description
534 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

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Contents
On the experience of moral confusion -- The myth of barter -- Primordial debts -- Cruelty and redemption -- A brief treatise on the moral grounds of economic relations -- Games with sex and death -- Honor and degradation, or, on the foundations of contemporary civilization -- Credit versus bullion, and the cycles of history -- The axial age (800 BC-600 AD) -- The middle ages (600 AD-1450 AD) -- Age of the great capitalist empires (1450-1971) -- (1971 : the beginning of something yet to be determined).
Summary
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 goodsùthat 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. Without knowing it, we are still fighting these battles today. --
Debt: The First 5,000 Years is a fascinating chronicle of this little known historyùas well as how it has defined human history, and what it means for the credit crisis of the present day and the future of our economy. --Book Jacket.
Subject(s)
ISBN
9781612191294
9781933633862 (alk. paper)
1933633867 (alk. paper)
Bibliography Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Source of Acquisition
Behrend copy: Purchased with funds from the Paterno Libraries Endowment; 2011.
View MARC record | catkey: 7286572