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Debt - Updated and Expanded by David Graeber
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Debt - Updated and Expanded

The First 5,000 Years

$47.23

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Narrator Grover Gardner

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Length 17 hours 48 minutes
Language English
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Summary

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.

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Audiobook details

Author:

Narrator:
Grover Gardner

ISBN:
9781469063041

Length:
17 hours 48 minutes

Language:
English

Publisher:
Ascent Audio

Publication date:

Edition:
Unabridged

Libro.fm rank:
#706 Overall

Genre rank:
#16 in Business

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Celebrate indie bookstores with our limited-time sale! Shop the sale