We are still fighting these battles today without knowing it. 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 innumerable insurrections.

It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.

Here Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: he shows that before there was money, there was debt.įor 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. TEHRAN – “Debt: The First 5,000 Years” by American anthropologist David Graeber has been published in Persian by Cheshmeh.Īli Moazzami is the translator of the book, which was first published in 2011 and called “Fresh… fascinating… thought-provoking… and exceedingly timely” by the Financial Times.

David graeber history of debt