**Debt: The First 5000 Years** is a 2011
[book](List_of_Libertarian_Socialist_Books "wikilink") by [David
Graeber](David_Graeber "wikilink") which explores the historical
relationship of debt with social institutions such as barter, marriage,
friendship, slavery, law, religion, war and government; in short, much
of the fabric of human life in society. It draws on the history and
anthropology of a number of civilizations, large and small, from the
first known records of debt from [Sumer](Sumer "wikilink") in 3500 BC
until the present.

## Summary

### On The Experience of Moral Confusion

### The Myth of Barter

### Primordial Debts

### Cruelty and Redemption

### A Brief Treatise on the Moral Grounds of Economic Relations

### Games with Sex and Death

### Honor and Degradation, or, On the Foundations of Contemporary Civilization

### Credit Versus Bullion, And the Cycles of History

### The Axial Age (800BC-600AD)

### The Middle Ages (600AD-1450AD)

### Age of the Great Capitalist Empires (1450-1971)

### (1971-The Beginning of Something Yet to be Determined)

## External Links

  - [Debt: The First 5000
    Years](https://libcom.org/files/__Debt__The_First_5_000_Years.pdf)
    at libcom.org