Debt: The First 5000 Years
A Froogal Stoodent Review
The first of a new series of book reviews from The Froogal Stoodent.
This book is far too complex and entangled for me to cite some quotes and provide a quick overview. You should read it for yourself!
In this instance, I’ll just identify one quote that really struck me:
Casimir’s behavior [that is, Margrave Casimir of Brandenburg-Ansbach, who sent a small army to brutalize his own territories in the wake of a rebellion—and of course, took all the gold]…seems, like that of Cortes’s angry foot soldiers when unleashed on the Aztec provinces, to embody something essential about the psychology of debt. Or more precisely, perhaps, about the debtor who feels he has done nothing to deserve being placed in his position: the frantic urgency of having to convert everything around oneself into money, and rage and indignation at having been reduced to the sort of person who would do so.”
—David Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years, p. 325
