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Debt - The First 5000 Years (Paperback, 2nd Revised edition)
Loot Price: R464
Discovery Miles 4 640
You Save: R170
(27%)
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Debt - The First 5000 Years (Paperback, 2nd Revised edition)
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List price R634
Loot Price R464
Discovery Miles 4 640
You Save R170 (27%)
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
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Before there was money, there was debt
Every economics textbook says the same thing: Money was invented
to replace onerous and complicated barter systems--to relieve
ancient people from having to haul their goods to market. The
problem with this version of history? There's not a shred of
evidence to support it.
Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of
conventional wisdom. He shows that 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.
"Debt: The First 5,000 Years "is a fascinating chronicle of this
little known history--as well as how it has defined human history,
and what it means for the credit crisis of the present day and the
future of our economy.
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