Listen free for 30 days
Listen with offer
-
Debt - Updated and Expanded
- The First 5,000 Years
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
99p for the first 3 months
Debt - Updated and Expanded
Buy Now for £21.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
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.
Critic reviews
More from the same
What listeners say about Debt - Updated and Expanded
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Eoin
- 12-10-19
An exceptional read
Not what I expected at all but an amazingly informative read. There were surprises in every chapter and beliefs and assumptions were dropped one after the other.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Allan Paterson
- 15-10-18
Fantastic insight into how "money" really works
This is a great book to help your understanding of how our monetary systems got here. It poses an intriguing dilemma as to how it will all work out (or not) in the end.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 02-12-22
A must
Insight to how money works ok relation to living. For anyone interested in humanity surviving another century!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Philippe Nadouce
- 19-09-20
The end of the myth of barter
Amazing book! Graeber is an encyclopedia and a brilliant mind. What a journey! Get prepared to be challenged if you were taught neo classic economics. The world as you know it is not what it seems to be.
Now, this book is about anthropology and it is written by an academic. Meaning : it is long and sometimes it can be confusing. For those who really don't have enough time I recommend them to start with the chapter on Axial age. I can guarantee that they will be gobsmacked by the erudition and the cleverness of Graeber.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story4 out of 5 stars
- Michael
- 19-05-16
Great book!
Great book, quite long & requires alot of attention but good valuable information! worth a listen (will have tp listen t it again! !)
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Jag
- 06-01-22
By far the best Audiobook I've listened to.
Debt has shattered many preconceptions that economic textbooks take for granted and has changed the way I view the Economy. Although it's densely packed with knowledge Graeber makes it easy it absorb. Wonderful book. Wonderful Author.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mr. C. Bell
- 31-08-22
Money: What is it good for?
Absolutely everything. This is a tremendous journey through the history of debt - monetary, in-kind, and monetary again. It has genuinely identified it and put debt in context for me. Great history, philosophy, economics and anthropology.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 23-12-21
Long but fascinating
A truly fascinating history of debt and money if I ever heard of one. It's a very long book but worth the time.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story4 out of 5 stars
- Aaron McDaid
- 02-09-21
Fantastic history of debts - and indeed commerce
The best thing is the large collection of examples - over thousands of years - of how debt and obligations preceded commerce and trade. And how coins are a relatively late invention.
It also makes the observation that markets and capitalism are opposed to each other. Capitalists crush markets in order to create monopolies. (See a great short paper on this by Peter Thiel of PayPal). The role of usury/interest is discussed here.
The discussion of the last century is a bit lacking however. The author doesn't understand the Great Depression, nor Keynesianism. And he claims - falsely - that capitalism requires constant growth and therefore that climate change will kill capitalism.
In short, his anthropology and history are excellent up until relatively recently, but he doesn't correctly understand the money of the last century or so.
Despite this criticism, I feel this is required reading for anybody who is interested in (macro-)economics. It's different from, but a great complement to, the observations in Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Imma j lopez
- 19-06-23
Please, read it!!!
Not answers but questions, the ones that he proposes directly and the ones which indirectly we may come to recognise in our own bodies, questions that open another type of conversations, which might bring a change in the current agreements, since they seem to be shortcoming and avoiding of a larger reality.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!