Books

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Debt: The First 5,000 Years

2011 Melville House Publishing

In this book, David Graeber reveals that before money, there was debt. For over 5,000 years, humans used credit systems to trade goods, predating coins or cash. Graeber argues this era saw the division of society into debtors and creditors. He also shows how debates on debt and forgiveness shaped political revolts and influenced law and religion, with terms like "guilt" and "redemption" rooted in ancient disputes, affecting modern beliefs.

First published 2011 Translations: Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Dutch, English, Estonian, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish

The Democracy Project

In this book, David takes readers on a journey through the idea of democracy, provocatively reorienting our understanding of pivotal historical moments, and extracts their lessons for today—from the birth of Athenian democracy and the founding of the United States of America to the global revolutions of the twentieth century and the rise of a new generation of activists. Underlying it all is a bracing argument that in the face of increasingly concentrated wealth and power in this country, a reenergized, reconceived democracy—one based on consensus, equality, and broad participation—can yet provide us with the just, free, and fair society we want.

First published 2012 Translations: Arabic, Chinese (Traditional), English, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish