So it is a book in which endnotes and references make up almost 20 percent of the page count, but also one that makes liberal use of contractions and includes the occasional personal anecdote. He did intend to write “the sort of book people don’t write any more: a big book, asking big questions, meant to be read widely and spark public debate, but at the same time, without any sacrifice of scholarly rigor.” At the anthropology blog Savage Minds, Graeber reports that a friend, on reading a draft, told him, “I don’t think anyone has written a book like this in a hundred years.” Graeber is too modest to take the compliment, but admits his friend has a point. The title tells us that, and so does its author. David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years is an ambitious book.
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