For readers with an affinity for big books — literally and figuratively — Debt: The First 5,000 Years excites on the first encounter. David Graeber’s 500-page romp through the anthropology and history of money, debt, and various coercive and non-coercive forms of social exchange is filled with captivating ideas presented in a lively, engaging manner. Graeber, an anthropologist at Goldsmiths, was a key figure in the Occupy Wall Street movement against corporate mismanagement, and is credited with the slogan, “We are the 99 per cent”. Graeber’s view is informed both by the academy and by the streets. But just as the vastness of the topic and the boldness of this literary enterprise are alluring — how many other books promise a 5,000-year panorama? — Debt occasionally falls short in its ambitious undertaking.

Only an anthropologist could have written Debt — and one comfortable wading through reams of history, at that. This seemingly trite statement is essential to explaining the allure and uniqueness of this book. Here’s why: upon beginning the book, my first reaction — and I suspect I am not the only one — was to wonder whether this book wasn’t actually about money, the study of which the academy has mostly left to economists. But Debt (the book) and debt (the phenomenon) is about more than money; debt is more than a function of a monetised society. Debt did, and can exist in societies where money did not circulate, or in exchanges not defined by money. Simply put, debt is a way of moderating exchange and creating value, “an exchange,” Graeber describes, “that has not been brought to completion.”