Academics
A fascinating chronicle of little known history of Debt\nMust we always repay our debts?\nWasnt money invented to replace ancient barter systems?\nApparently not, according to Yale-bred anthropologist David Graeber. In a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom, Graeber radically challenges our understanding of debt. He illustrates how, for more than 5000 years long before the invention of coins or bills there existed debtors and creditors who used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods. He argues that Madagascar was held to be indebted to France because France invaded it, reminds us that texts from Vedic India included God in credit systems and shows how the dollar changed European society forever in the sixteenth century. He also brilliantly demonstrates how 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.\nDebt: The First 5,000 Years is a fascinating chronicle of this little known history of how it has defined the evolution of human society, and what it means for the credit crisis of the present day and the future of our economy.
David Graeber was a professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics. He is the author of The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, Debt: The First 5, Years and Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, and was a contributor to Harper's Magazine, the Guardian, and the Baffler. An iconic thinker and renowned activist, his early efforts helped to make Occupy Wall Street an era-defining movement. He died on 2 September 22. David Wengrow is a professor of comparative archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and has been a visiting professor at New York University. He is the author of three books, including What Makes Civilization?. Wengrow conducts archaeological fieldwork in various parts of Africa and the Middle East.
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