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As a sociologist, I've been despairing of late at the paucity of imagination and theoretical innovation in social science research. Academics, perhaps because of the need to publish quickly and garner grant money, seem content to only add statistical validation to already established conclusions. Or, a la David Harvey, to regurgitate Marx with minor variation, with a focus solely on the neoliberal period, and in US/Eurocentric fashion.

Debt: The First 5,000 Years redeems the social sciences. Not easily reduced to a brief summary, the book asks the questions: How has humanity--from the ancient cities of Mesopotamia to the current day--conceived of the idea of debt? How has the construction of debt been inextricably bound to economic, religious, political, and historical realities? And, finally, it asks a provocative philosophical question: Given the history of the social construction of debt, how do we in the current moment respond to our own alleged indebtedness?

To answer these questions, Graeber embarks on the massive project of giving us a history of debt as a both a moral and economic concept, documenting in relentless and glorious detail how that concept changed through major periods of time (Ancient, Axial, Middle Ages, Early capitalist and current period)and amongst different societies (Islam vs. Christianity, etc.) In doing so, he shows conventional economic truisms for what they are: utter falsehoods. Exciting insights are also given into how people have resisted paying debts throughout history, this is not a passive story meant provoke sympathy.

The last chapter on the current period (1970's--present) felt a little rushed and given the gravity and depth of the previous chapters, I think it could have used more of a drawing together of all of the many fascinating points made in the book. Graeber doesn't offer any concrete suggestions(neither did Marx, so this can be easily forgiven) other than a Jubilee, but I hope that he does lend his imaginative and analytic powers to praxis in the future.

The read provides one not only with a new extraordinary depth of knowledge, but also stimulates new questions and hopefully will inspire other researches to continue following Graeber's lead. Lastly, it makes one think more humanistically about what our true debts are...a book everyone should explore numerous times.