Debt

This is a new book. Condition: Brand New.

A revised and updated edition of the international bestseller, to be launched with major advertising push -- just months before the launch of Graeber's new book with Melville House

Now more relevant than ever, the groundbreaking international best-seller 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.

Book details and technical specifications

Format: Paperback / softback
ISBN13: 9781612194196
Published: October 2014

Number of pages: 560
Width: 142 mm
Height: 212 mm
Depth: not specified

Publisher: Melville House Publishing