David Graeber, an anthropologist at the London School of Economics, and one of the organisers of Occupy Wall Street, presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: he shows that long before there was money, there was debt. In this sweeping study, Graeber argues that our current ideas about money are limited, if not completely wrong.

Society has always been divided into debtors and creditors, and debt and forgiveness have been at the centre of political debate long before money existed. Graeber shows how we are still fighting these battles today, and the financial crisis is an urgent and global example of that.