Debt by David Graeber

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Debt by David Graeber

Regular price £14.99
Condition - Well read
1 In stock
Regular price £14.99
Condition - Well read
1 In stock
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Debt by David Graeber

David Graeber's fresh.fascinating.thought-provoking.and exceedingly timely (Financial Times) history of debt

Anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: before there was money, there was debt. For more than five thousand 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 and what it means for the credit crisis of the present day and the future of our economy.

David Graeber's fresh.fascinating.thought-provoking.and exceedingly timely (Financial Times) history of debt

Anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: before there was money, there was debt. For more than five thousand 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 and what it means for the credit crisis of the present day and the future of our economy.

David Graeber teaches anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is the author of Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value, Lost People: Magic and the Legacy of Slavery in Madagascar, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, Possibilities: Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion, and Desire, and Direct Action: An Ethnography. He has written for Harper's, The Nation, Mute, and The New Left Review. In 2006, he delivered the Malinowski Memorial Lecture at the London School of Economics, an annual talk that honors outstanding anthropologists who have fundamentally shaped the study of culture.
In the summer of 2011, he worked with a small group of activists and Adbusters magazine to plan Occupy Wall Street. Bloomberg Businessweek has called him an anti-leader of the movement. The Atlantic wrote that he has come to represent the Occupy Wall Street message... expressing the group's theory, and its founding principles, in a way that truly elucidated some of the things people have questioned about it.
SKU GOR009881161
ISBN 13 9781612191294
ISBN 10 1612191290
Title Debt
Author David Graeber
Condition Well read
Binding Type Paperback
Publisher Melville House Publishing
Year published 2013-04-04
Number of pages 534
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note This is a used book. We do our best to provide good quality books for you to read, but there is no escaping the fact that it has been owned and read by someone else previously. Therefore it will show signs of wear and may be an ex library book