Debt - Updated and Expanded: The First 5,000 Years
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.39 (983 Votes) |
| Asin | : | B015F0BBFW |
| Format Type | : | |
| Number of Pages | : | 299 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-12-27 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
in Philosophy 101 attacking the man is called the ad hominem fallacy for a good reason). True Whitesheep Graeber paints a rich historical panorama of ideas about debt from ancient Babylon to the present. The book is a treasure of intellectual history, one that indifferently debunks with current research (not just Graeber's) much of the propaganda of monarchists, religious apologists, free market economists, socialists, communists, and others, which propaganda is the stuff of most people's thoughts. We forget that modern sociological and anthropological science only began in the last 150 years, which puts many sacred cows in jeopardy. True, to appreciate intellectual history, one m. Angelina Bolton said the one- and two-star reviews have more to do with the author's frank busting of certain comfortable economic just-so stories. Comments from ancap extremists, randian alternate-universe-occupiers and alt-right nut-buckets notwithstanding, this book is a thoroughly researched, factually grounded and detailed discussion of the history of debt, and the implications of that history for our own era. It's very well-written and an engaging read, besides.Likely, the one- and two-star reviews have more to do with the author's frank busting of certain comfortable economic just-so stories, than with the actual content or quality of the book.HIGHLY recommended.. Lawrence said Propoganda- not history or anthropology. In the afterward to this book, David Graeber says that as an anthropologist he is perfectly positioned between economists (who only see events as they conform to some numerical theory) and historians (who won't find general meaning at all no matter how compelling the facts) to assess the history of debt. Unfortunately he is much more like the economists. He views the world from an admittedly anti-capitalist bias and this entire book seems devoted to finding facts and interpreting events to support this bias. What was supposed to be an epic tome- along the lines of "Guns, Germs,
Here, anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: He shows that before there was money, there was debt. Now in audio, the updated and expanded edition: David Graeber's "freshfascinatingthought-provokingand exceedingly timely" (Financial Times) history of 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. We are still fighting these battles today without knowing it.. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors. 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. 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 innumerabl