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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. Read more
Publisher : Melville House
Publication date : October 28, 2014
Edition : Updated,Expanded
Language : English
Print length : 560 pages
ISBN-10 : 6
ISBN-13 : 96
Item Weight : 1.12 pounds
Dimensions : 5.59 x 1.42 x 8.35 inches
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Top Amazon Reviews
Format: Paperback
Graeber's book is a long, slow read, yet it is a fascinating page-turner for which I enjoyed EVERY SINGLE PAGE. I would highly recommend this five-star book to anyone who enjoys investigating the mysteries of economics in our modern world and to anyone who enjoys history, sociology, anthropology, or looking for major historical trends which tie together and explain world events. I saw a few critical reviews while reading this book, and now that I have finished, my opinion is that anyone who negatively reviews this book only read a portion of it. Most of the critical reviews are dismissive of his "point-of-view" as being "wrong." However, anyone who has actually read the whole book realizes that he has stepped back and looked at these issues from multiple perspectives and through the lens of multiple disciplines. People who are upset by this book (or by the introductory chapters) are upset because today's economics teaching focuses only on a small piece of the "economics thought pie" (my term) which is out there. Graeber steps out into discussing pieces which are less covered (or not covered at all) in typical economics classes in the West of today. So, rather than reading through his arguments, and seeing where they wind up by reading the whole book, I am certain these people gave up only part-way into the book, and then wrote a negative review because the ideas are different (much wider and more complicated) than they have been taught, and they find it "out of their paradigm" and just can't accept reading further. Yet, anyone should be able to read alternative ideas that challenge traditional ideas in order to see if their beliefs really stand up under scrutiny. So much information is packed into Debt: The First 5,000 Years, that it could easily have been written as five separate stand-alone books. As an anthropologist at the London School of Economics, Graeber wrote a massive, sprawling history of debt, credit, and the development of markets and money; he ties it to war, slavery, taxes, tribute, government bureaucracy, religious thought, and both local and international trade, by looking at societies from ancient Mesopotamia, to India, to China, to ancient Greece and Rome, to Latin America, to the Middle Ages, and to the Modern Ages. Why did he do it this way? Several reasons. First, as an anthropologist, he felt he was in a unique position to help us completely rethink our sense of the rhythms of economic history. Economists and historians, he points out, normally come at history in opposite directions. "Economists tend to come at history with their mathematical models--and the assumptions about human nature that come along with them--already in place: it's largely a matter of arranging the data around equations. Historians .....often refuse to extrapolate at all; in the absence of direct evidence.....they will not ask whether it is reasonable to make (certain) assumptions....this is why we have so many "histories of money" that are actually histories of coinage....Anthropologists, in contrast, are empirical--they don't just apply preset models--but they also have such a wealth of comparative material at their disposal they CAN actually speculate about what village assemblies in Bronze Age Europe or credit systems in ancient China were likely to be like. And they can reexamine the evidence to see if it confirms or contradicts their assessment." Second, as a admirer of French anthropologist Marcel Mauss, by writing this book, Graeber feels he has put to rest the real "pet peeve" of anthropologists everywhere--the myth of barter. I found this a shocking idea when introduced to it at the beginning of the book, but he has really convinced me as a reader through his extensive and comprehensive looks at every possible facet of this question. I will try to summarize in one paragraph the large sweeping ideas covered in this book. What is money, really? What determines what gets used as money, and why? Certain historical ages operated on mutual credit systems, with practically no coinage at all in circulations (for hundreds or even thousands of years at a time); other ages operated with coin made out of various precious metals. What were the differences between the types of ages when these different types of systems occurred in societies around-the-world, and what were the causes of these differences? Historically, when did these various ages occur, and why? What is happening now, and is the current situation in the world changing? We seem to have recently entered a new age of credit, but in many ways, completely unlike past ages of credit, with historical trends now completely reversed between creditors and debtors compared to past credit ages. How does war and slavery factor into all of this? What is capitalism and how did it come about? Does it really work as it claims to? What are the problems and myths associated with capitalism? What does faith and credit in government and society mean, and what has it meant throughout all historical ages around-the-world? These are just a few of the book's largest questions. Now I will touch on what this book meant to me personally. As an American living overseas in North Africa, I really enjoyed his discussion of how credit was handled during the Middle Ages in Europe, with most people living on credit in regards to each other. It reminded me of the system we even continue to use in North Africa, even in cities, with the merchants at the corner stores (which are our societal equivalents of 7-11 stores). Each family has a notebook which they bring with them to the store each time they want to purchase something. The merchant notes it in the book, and accounts are settled up at the end of the month. Without cash or coin available to most of the populace in the European Middle Ages, everyone operated on such bases with their neighbors, everyone kept accounts, and accounts were settled up in the whole village once or twice a year, usually at specific times or festivals. I found this really interesting. Many such examples from the book meant something to me in my own life, but they would be too numerous to list here. The price of this paperback was one for which I got more than my money's worth, many times over, for the many pleasurable hours of reading, and all I learned, in a highly-enjoyable and extremely well-written text. I wish I could sit in on David Graeber's class. Be prepared--you will want to discuss this book with friends, so try to get a friend or a book club group to read it with you.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2017 by Imperial Topaz
Format: Paperback
(My second copy purchased in 2020.) There are some well-written reviews here. My take is _____ in contrast. Incomplete in comparison. ** Croesus' fame's with being first to use coinage of money to mobilize elite subjects (warlords-princes-chiefs) to stay or become more responsible (tributary) and loyal through gold! and involvements with merchants' business (moving gold included). *1 _1177_ *2 Life_And_Death_Of_Ancient_Cities *3 Silver,_Trade,_And_War *4 _Loop_ *5 Worldly_Philosophers *6 The_Coming_Boom *7 haven't read this one: Economic_Origins_of_Dictatorship_and_Democracy *8 Secular_Cycles *9 Ways_Of_Seeing *10 The_Sovereign_State_And_Its_Competitors *11 The_Dawn_Of_Everything *12 If_Anyone___Everyone___ Debt:_The_First_5,000_Years is a favorite book and reference of mine. For example, I learned about the Axial Age and other world-around ideas. "I owe you" and "You owe me", having identification, imperative, symmetry, severality, and obligation, or maybe just the rote text in a ritual of claim and get, however casual or not the emotion, are the Foundation principle, so to speak, to constructing any civilization's fiscal tech-regime, whether Bronze Age (*1) ingots or precious stones, Iron Age (*2) polis-placed monuments & civilian-religion & regularized trade-voyage-adventure, yeah with oligarchies, and central minting, Atlantic Age (*3) silver-deep-seas -- including the elite-down "price revolution" of English Channel Europe exploiting Spain exploiting the Americas, initiated circa 1490-1530, intensifying military "imperia" onto the emergent properties of enlarging nation-city economies -- such as Jane Jacobs wrote about, or earlier (before industrialized educations) as entangling "long sixteenth century" Europe's Croesuses (**), at various scales and many levels and loci of importance, into the self-expanding self-concentrating (no -ish about it) merchant-finance complexes of Antwerp, Genoa, Venice, and Augsburg, for instance --, the "glorious paper revolution" of industrializing the commerces that utilized bills of exchange and double-entry bookkeeping, creating central bank and treasury notes for nation-states of credit (and nation-citizens of debt), besides pamphleteering and magnum opa, grammar and ledger books, news and advertising, and other such "capital" Londonistry, Industrious and Industrial Revolutions generating ready labor and powered machinery for eager capitalists, ambitious farmers and manufacturers, and collectivist imperialism merchants, "at scale" as some say deceptively, and this Petroleum-Electrics-Electronics Age of ours today, especially computers, satellites, and many "smart" devices, immersing millions and then billions of people in a) dopamine-cortisol fixes and b) instant-stub-fixes -- as if the word for world is Gobsip -- and c) the oligarchies' and dynasties' and vergers' product-placement-financial-military-industrial complexes competing for those everywhere captive markets, for example with a round-robin stock strategy of utility for "inflation, bitch". As if monies recorded in budgets -- now almost fully up, down, in and throughout the Western topocosmos -- are the only standard and rule for life (*4) decisions, for economies, for (*5), for (*6). Vernacular, common, credible, technical. Debt and credit are the personal-social relations in feudalism's analytical geometry, with its slopes and cross-cuts of vertical, sideways, and conflict premises, fulfillments, stand-offs, and so-be-its (that's a short list English). Money is a calculus epsilon composite of feudal-world relations, statistically legible, like in (*7), (*8), (*9). Fisc and its two-and-a-half millenia of infrastructural developments and evolutions are -- as for (*10) pyramids -- projections and projects of/in/with monies of state & organization, howsoever the state festivals, justices, or theaters its law and order or the people organize their variances, norms, and symmetries. It seems to me that the author of 5,000_Years is not free of Western personifications (and male snobbery) despite claims in (*11) and for commune-ism. We do indeed need research strategies, researchers, and researches, in depth (among many other good qualities). Seems we'll do more rounds, through more tech-regime, likely some regressions (*12) as well as complexities, to get to what it is to be wealth of human, if not conscious, in printfix say, for the many and various ways peoples have brains for. Full-time or not.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2026 by Paul S.
Format: Paperback
This book was very interesting, with much information and a way of looking at economics that I had not considered before. Graeber is an anthropologist, not an economist, so he sees things in an unusual way, and that is good. Graeber sees that in most societies debt is very personal. The notion that economics is dominated by wealth-maximizing individuals bartering goods and services, then inventing money to facilitate this trading, is contrary to the findings of anthropologists. According to Graeber, the evidence shows that people used to live in small groups where everyone knew everyone else. The debts they incurred were personal and not precisely quantifiable. If you do me a favor, or give me something, then I owe you. When you ask me for a favor, I shall be obliged to do it. If someday I have excess stuff, I shall be obliged to give some of it to you because you previously gave me something. Until the moment when I repay you, you have a type of moral or psychological superiority over me. This moral or psychological superiority was highly valued. That type of system worked, so the notion that money had to be invented to fix a dysfunctional system is wrong. Money was created by governments; it gave them power. With money, governments could pay thousands of soldiers and control the economy of the entire country. There is much good about this book, so I almost gave it five stars, but Graeber allows his left-wing political opinions to influence his scholarship, which I do not approve. Also, there are many typographical errors throughout this book; someone should have proof-read it more carefully before publishing it.
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Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2016 by Shawn T. Miller
Format: Hardcover
This book came into my home because I was still high and happy on the full-on trip of reading 'The Dawn of Everything' by David Graeber and David Wengrow. That book radically re-organizes our (totally, provably, embarrassingly wrong) ideas about human history, to ask questions like 'how did we get stuck with governments. My type-a deal all the way. This book is equally interesting, and similar in many ways. The title conveys matte-dull economics blather, but (a little unlike 'capital in the twenty-first century' by Thomas Picketty, who wrote the intro to the updated edition) this book is no snoozer. It's engaging and irreverent, and funny. The author has a great formula for using common sense and deep knowledge of the Anthropology field to revise our automatic assumptions about his subjects. He certainly throws debt into a different light. I recommend this book for anyone who has read Dawn of Everything and wants more. But more directly, I recommend this book to anyone who has genuine questions about Debt, and the background for our present day state of affairs. At this writing the U.S. Senate republicans have recently challenged a bill to forgive student debt, claiming (of all things) that it is 'Unconstitutional'. While many of us have our minds reel over that one, it's a good time to recall that slavery and debt peonage and criminal persecution of those who are forced into debt are not new. They are schemes as old as writing, and older than money (as Graeber aptly demonstrates here). Give it a try. Also: I have the book and the audio book, and I would give the audio book a favorable review as well.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2022 by Todd
Format: Kindle
Loved this book. It spoke to the heart of my problems with modern economic discussions, which is that we are asking all the wrong questions. And when our models fail to accurately predict reality, we just subjugate someone new until they do, then point to the results of that imperialism as evidence of the universality of the model, which is always, in the end, correct. "Debt" upends this self-reinforcing circle, showing that humans always choose to make much messier and simpler systems of mutual aid based on trust and respect. Sure they are messy and filled with drama and revenge, but until personal agency and autonomy are trampled by violence, these systems are sustainable, and no one has to worry about running out of money for food or clothing. (You might just never hear the end of it from your neighbor the tailor XD ). Empires and systematic violence/ theft are the real drivers of monetary systems, they do not emerge naturally because interlocking systems of indebtedness are how we form our communities and human connections in the first place. It gave me the framework for understanding the approaches of all other economists that I needed to have, and the information and specific references to disprove the "conventional wisdom" when I encounter it. I cannot recommend this book enough, if that's what you're looking for too.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2023 by Ignus
Format: Paperback
Debt successfully challenged some core beliefs I had, and won. It is quite obvious that trust, thus credit, and thus debt, form the foundation of market relations. What become even more obvious through the book is that Money itself is just a derivative of that same foundation. Engaging book, doesn't feel dry at all. I genuinely laughed out loud several times, I loved the anecdotes and jokes. And a special mention for my Austrians. I felt that Graeber was deeply informed by von Mises. I had the impression that he read Socialism, Theory and History, and Bureaucracy in particular. Why? von Mises also shares that Socialism in-of-itself is not bad, and agrees that it forms the foundation of society (many Austrians neglect this little tidbit, that Mises was contra Socialism as an organizing principle of the state and not as an organizing principle as such). Also that hierarchy is another mode of relating, see Rothbards Power and Market for the clearest expression of this. In fact, the resulting trilogy that Graeber contributes as the core of his comparative tooling is the same of modern Austrians: socialism, intervention (or hierarchy), and markets. As well as the atomic individualism of the approach, though Graebers is magnitudes more empathetic to the experiences of the real world. Graeber also shares the same conclusion as Rothbard, that the history of economics essentially is a story of moral ideas, see the History of Economic Thought, both volumes. They arrive at meaningfully different interpretations, but the framework is roughly the same (in my opinion). Graeber is more informed by counter-examples, and the Austrians by a vacuum-sealed deductive approach. But taken together, a very rich understanding of the history world is bound to appear to the reader.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2022 by george mchugh
Format: Paperback
A book everyone should read. Now, admittedly, this book is pretty dense, and it took me about 4 months (in fairness—I took some breaks) It is nonetheless excellent. It’s not so much an economic treatise (though it is that!) as it is an exploration of how humans have interacted with each other for millennia, specifically through the lenses of trust, market, currency, and so on. Way more philosophy than you might expect from what looks like an econ textbook. It’s truly truly excellent, and seriously everyone should read this. I learned a whole bunch about the history of money and debt, including correcting a number of errors I’d picked up about how everything had worked and evolved. Highly recommended.
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Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2024 by James A. Thomason III
Format: Paperback
This book had a lot of potential. It is a really interesting look at the history of debt. Near the beginning, the author seems to set out to establish a new theory of the origins of money. He does a fantastic job at undermining the longstanding idea that money evolved out of systems of barter. His first few chapters on the prevailing theories of money and its origins are great. He establishes that money is based upon the concept of debt and that debt itself has this really long history that predates the invention of money. What I would have enjoyed seeing is how well this theory explains monetary dynamics in history moving forward and especially now in modern times. Instead, I think the author spent a lot of time focusing on a history of debt which he could use to justify the recommendations he makes in the last chapter of the book. The book has these three sections that are just brutal to get through (Axial Age, Middle Ages, Ages of Capitalist Empires). In them, I struggled to keep focused on whatever was the overarching point of the book. I don't think the point was clear. That being said, by the end of the book the author did seem to suggest a return to the concept of "jubilee" where all debts are forgiven. I think he suggests this because a) we have a credit-based system of money once again and b) in other credit-based systems historically, this was something done to help hit the reset button and not keep anyone enslaved under a debt-burden they would not be able to overcome in their lifetime. I see his point, but I only wish the book accomplished more in the way of a theory that explains the concept of money today.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 31, 2017 by Skubalon12