David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years is an ambitious book. The title tells us that, and so does its author. 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. 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.”

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. It is, as Graeber says, “an accessible 
work, written in plain English, that actually does try to challenge common sense assumptions.” The style is welcome, 
akin to that of the best interdisciplinary scholarly blogs (like Crooked Timber, where Debt has been the subject of a symposium): clear, intelligent, and free of unexplained specialist jargon.

It has had great success in finding a popular audience and accumulated glowing press reviews: “one of the year’s most influential books,” “more readable and entertaining than I can indicate,” “a sprawling, erudite and provocative work,” “fresh  . . .  fascinating  . . .  not just thought-provoking, but also exceedingly timely,” “forced me to completely reevaluate my position on human economics, its history, and its branches of thought.” It has also found the desired political audience: Graeber became a guru of the Occupy movement, not only as a participant but as an intellectual presence, his book in encampment libraries everywhere.