..and Forgive Them Their Debts: Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption from Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year

by Michael Hudson

Selected "Best Books of 2018: Economics" by The Financial Times

In . ..and forgive them their debts , renowned economist Michael Hudson - one of the few who could see the 2008 financial crisis coming - takes us on an epic journey through the economies of ancient civilizations and reveals their relevance for us today. For the past 40 years, in conjunction with Harvard's Peabody Museum, he and his colleagues have documented how interest-bearing debt was invented in Bronze Age Mesopotamia, and then disseminated to the ancient world. What the Bronze Age rulers understood was that avoiding economic instability required regular royal debt cancellations. Professor Hudson documents dozens of these these royal edicts and traces the archeological record and history of debt, and how societies have dealt with (or failed to deal with) the proliferation of debts that cannot be paid - and their consequences. In the pages of ...and forgive them their debts , readers will discover how debt played a central role in shaping ancient societies, and how it continues to shape our world - often destructively.

The Big Question: What happens when debts cannot be paid? Will there be a writedown in favor of debtors (as is routinely done for large corporations), or will creditors be allowed to foreclose (as is done to personal debtors and mortgagees), leading to the creditors' political takeover of the economy's assets - and ultimately the government itself? Historically, the remedy of record was the royal Clean Slate proclamation, or biblical Jubilee Year of debt forgiveness.

The Real Message of Jesus: Jesus's first sermon announced that he had come to proclaim a Clean Slate debt cancellation (the Jubilee Year), as was first described in the Bible (Leviticus 25), and had been used in Babylonia since Hammurabi's dynasty. This message - more than any other religious claim - is what threatened his enemies, and is why he was put to death. This interpretation has been all but expunged from our contemporary understanding of the phrase, "...and forgive them their debts," in The Lord's Prayer. It has been changed to "...and forgive them their trespasses (or sins)," depending on the particular Christian tradition that influenced the translation from the Greek opheilēma/opheiletēs (debts/debtors).

Contrary to the message of Jesus, also found in the Old Testament of Bible and in other ancient texts, debt repayment has become sanctified and mystified as a way of moralizing claims on borrowers, allowing creditor elites and oligarchs the leverage to take over societies and privatize personal and public assets - especially in hard times. Historically, no monarchy or government has survived takeover by creditor elites and oligarchs (viz: Rome). Perhaps most striking is that - according to a nearly complete consensus of Assyriologists and biblical scholars - the Bible is preoccupied with debt forgiveness more than with sin.

In a time of increasing economic and political polarization, and a global economy deeper in debt than at the height of the 2008 financial crisis, ...and forgive them their debts documents what individuals, governments and societies can learn from the ancient past for restoring economic and social stability today.

Genres: Economics, History, Nonfiction, Politics, Money, Finance, Anthropology

340 pages, Hardcover

Published December 31, 2018

About the author

Michael Hudson is an American economist, Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and a researcher at the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College, former Wall Street analyst, political consultant, commentator and journalist. He is a contributor to The Hudson Report, a weekly economic and financial news podcast produced by Left Out.

Reviews

[J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading. *Seriously* enraptured with this theory of history. A crucial source for Graeber.

Here's a link to an edition of 11QMelchizedek.

On first reading (2019): My reservation is that, whenever I have antecedent knowledge of a text, as with Plato and to a lesser extent the Gospels (not, certainly, of the Mesopotamian archival materials which I'm so grateful to be given access to here) I have, I think, pretty straightforward reasons to find H's readings unnecessarily tendentious. The (epochal) importance of the debt thesis could have been maintained and defended without any hermeneutical distortions, I think. You don't have to bend the surface logic of the texts quite so much in order to make the case that this crucial story of debt and its royal annulment is what they're really about at a deeper level; you just have to be a little more attentive to (or patient with) the difference between surface and structure.

We'll see if I roll back any of this critique on reread in 2021.

[Kristofer Carlson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is absolutely brilliant. Michael Hudson began looking into the subject of debt, realized he didn't know enough about the subject, and spent the next thirty years studying. If you want to understand the foundation of economics, you need to read this book. If you want to understand the culture of the Old and New Testaments and how that culture affects scriptural understanding, you need to read this book. If you want to understand the fall of empires, you need to read this book. If you want to understand the basic flaw of modern capitalism, you need to read this book.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I did.  In this book's favor, it can be said that the theme of debt forgiveness and the importance of a free peasant class that is not burdened with debts to parasitic rentier elements within society is certainly a useful one.  The author also speaks with a great deal of personal experience in the matter, speaking as an advocate of heavily indebted Latin American nations whose defaults in the 1980's were a subject of considerable controversy in the role of the IMF in global finance.  Yet this book does not succeed as well as it does because the author shows a great deal of focus on Bronze age Mesopotamia as holding the solution to indebtedness when it actually was the reason why the debt trap for poor farmers existed in the first place and because the author adopts bogus and lamentably incorrect documentary hypotheses regarding the biblical record, which is not given the full credit it deserves when it comes to the Sabbath principle.  This book could have been so much better than it was, but the author's anti-biblical bias unfortunately makes this work a missed opportunity.

This book is between 250 and 300 pages and it is is divided into four parts and 29 relatively short chapters.  The book begins with a discussion of the rise and fall of debt cancellation, a discussion of archaic economies, and the major themes of the book.  After that the author gives an overview (I) with a discussion of the Babylonian perspective of liberty and economic order (1), Jesus' first sermon and the tradition of debt amnesty (2), and a discussion of the contexts of credit, debt, and money (3).  The author then looks at the social origins of debt (II), through a look at the anthropology of debt (4), creditors as predators (5), the origins of commercial interest in Sumer (6), and rural usury as a means of imposing bondage and privatizing the commons (7).  The next fourteen chapters discuss the invention of usury in the Bronze Age and the way that humane and shrewd rulers in Mesopotamia and nearby areas sought to counter its adverse effects (8-21).  The rest of the book discusses the biblical legacy of debt, which is unfortunately marred by a refusal to take the biblical writings as being contemporary and historical because of the author's blinkered insistence on holding to documentary views of the law and prophets (22-29).  The book then ends with an index and bibliography.

Besides the lamentable aspects of the author's bias, there are some elements of this book that are deeply unfortunate as well in that the author appears to promise more than he delivers in terms of the contents of this book.  Rather than being a full account of the problem of debt and how it has been managed by different societies, some which did it well and some (like late Republican Rome and our own society) which have done it poorly, this book is really only the first half or even the first third of the story.  So long as the reader is able to correct what the writer says about the Bible and keep it in mind and so long as the reader is able to properly expect the limited materials and scope of this work given the broadly expansive discussion that the author makes in his introduction, this work can be profitably read.  Even if one does not agree with the author's politics, a strong case can be made for the importance of periodic debt forgiveness and for the social benefits of a sturdy class of modest but patriotic free farmers in preserving the national well-being in ways that corrupt rentier classes cannot do, and that is good enough for this book to be modestly worthwhile.

[Fearless Leader · Rating 5 out of 5]

And Forgive Them Their Debts is a historical study of debt cancellations and creditor/debtor relationships in the Bronze Age/Iron Age occident. It creates a compelling through line with credit relationships as the main driver of civilizational cycles, in the MMT fashion. It’s also the first really good economic history of the Bronze Age I’ve come across.

Hudson is a Marxist and this is in many ways the fulfillment of Marx’s assertion that history is a struggle between the propertied and propertyless. Hudson, however, doesn’t inundate the reader with emotional claims, quite the opposite. He makes a realist case for why Bronze Age kings would annul debts periodically as a mechanism for securing state power against private oligarchs. Incidentally, these debt cancellations also reduced inequality, promoted economic growth, and political stability.

Brilliant and well read work.

[Chet]

All the top reviews on this site said pretty much everything that needs to be said about this book so I won't rehash. We ignore Jesus's economic message at our own peril.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Required reading for all politicians and influencers. Contrary to what I learned growing up, the Jews were not the ones to invent the jubilee. Instead, it was a regular practice in the Middle East for generations. One of the most powerful sections is when Hudson explains that a lot of Jesus's teaching about forgiveness of debt was meant to be taken literally, a forgiveness of the literal financial debts people had. We learn that the regular practice of jubilee was eliminated from a rabbinical decree and slowly people began to suffer. Back in the day, farmers could not control the weather (well, they still can't), and so, the crops they owed the king were not payable. This was reasonably expected and then the farmer accrued debt with interest. Sometimes the interest would pile up and the once a new king came to power he would forgive all debts, freeing all the farmers from their creditors. Why do this? Because otherwise the creditors would take the land of the farmers, and the creditor class would soon rival the king and depose him.

Basically, history has been one big long battle between creditors and debtors, with the Greeks and Romans securing victory for the creditors. Once you realize most of what goes on in our financial sector is designed to aid the creditor, and do nothing for the debtor, you will better understand why things go the way they go (like the 2008 bank bailouts). Once you read this book and learn that fact, it's probably best practice to avoid debt like the devil, but unfortunately, many of us millennials accrued the only form of debt that can't be discharged in bankruptcy before we could get wise to the ways of credit.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good look at the origins of debt and debt jubilees with not subtle commentary on how things have changed. Mostly focuses on Sumer/Ur/Babylon/other Near Eastern ancient civilizations with some coverage of Jewish, Greek, and Byzantine practices. (And the inevitable Roman screw up that set the world down a more tragic path) Goes through the cycle of debt forgiveness practiced to maintain a population capable of paying taxes/fighting/providing corvee labor and the inevitable rise of an oligarchic/aristocratic class that tried to take the population's land and labor. It's interesting that this class generally was the bureaucracy tasked with running the state and ended up working in opposition to the ruler and people. Last tidbit is on tyrants, and how initially they were good rulers, the subsequent bad rap is mostly caused by history being written mostly by creditors. Only reason the book didn't get 5 stars is it was a slow read for a not long book. Still highly recommended.

[Leigh Kimmel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of us have a pretty clear idea of what a chronic debtor looks like. They can't manage their money. Overwhelmed by the abundance of consumer products and the easy availability of credit, they spend with no regard to their ability to pay it back. They have forgotten the habits of thrift and self-discipline that made our pioneer ancestors strong and instead become self-indulgent and extravagant.

This view of debt and debtors leaves many people with the impression that consumer debt is pretty much a modern invention. However, this is a mistaken impression of people with little grounding in history. Far from being a modern invention, debt is as old as civilization, and so is the problem of people overwhelmed by debt.

This book is a study of the development of overwhelming debt and of debt relief in Sumeria, the original cradle of Western Civilization. The Sumerians and subsequent Mesopotamian civilizations wrote on clay tablets, which were easily erased and reused in the ordinary order of business -- but which fired quite nicely into pottery when the temple and palace libraries burned, whether by accident or during invasion or civil war. As a result we have astonishingly durable records of completely ordinary transactions, particularly financial ones. And we find a very different history of the development of debt than was envisioned by the Enlightenment era thinkers who originally developed the science of economics.

While there were merchants borrowing money from temple and palace for speculative ventures, most of the ordinary people's borrowing was for subsistence needs. For instance, they would buy the seed on credit, then settle up on the threshing floor. Or they would buy food on credit, not to resell at profit but simply to feed themselves until harvest time, at which they would settle up.

Over time, particularly after the development of the concept of interest-bearing loans (which appears to have grown out of loans in which animate chattels were pledged as security and the lender put them to work to his own gain), these debts began to trap the peasant class, creating a financial treadmill of debits to which they could not catch up, until they were pledging their possessions, their family members, their portion of the clan's land, and even themselves as surety for their loans. Ultimately they were being reduced to landless debt-peons, a situation reminiscent of sharecroppers in the South under Jim Crow -- except that, not being marked out by readily noticeable physical differences from the ruling classes, the Mesopotamian peasants were far more able to flee their debts.

As a result, Mesopotamian leaders were well aware of the peril of civil instability resulting from runaway debt loads consolidating wealth that had traditionally been the property of the various peasant clans for subsistence, not profit. In order to forestall outright rebellion and to ensure that the peasant class would continue to be available as infantry in wartime, they periodically forgave debts, allowing farmers to return to their traditional homes, family members to be reunited, and everyone to get a fresh start.

Given that the patriarch Abraham is said to have come from Ur of the Chaldees and the Children of Israel later spent time as captives in Babylon, it is unsurprising that elements of these practices should be found in Jewish law. The Torah prescribes periodic remissions of debt, including the Year of Jubilee every fifty years. Many of the prophets' calls for justice was less about criminal law than about matters that we would today regard as relating to bankruptcy law. The wealthy must not take advantage of the vulnerability of the poor in order to snare them into debt-peonage and then exploit their labor for profit, nor take away their homes and farmland which belonged to tribe and clan.

And this book has relevance to contemporary finances. Instead of impulsive over-spenders, we're seeing more and more people whose tumble into chronic debt began with an expensive misfortune. Perhaps a car essential to getting to work broke down, requiring expensive repairs that had to be financed. The additional strain of that monthly payment squeezed everything else, leading to further borrowing to cover other necessities when they got left out in the cold. Or they or a family member fell ill or was injured and required expensive medical treatment, and they had to make a payment plan for the part that wasn't covered by insurance (and even with insurance, one can easily be left with four and five-figure bills).

Furthermore, wages have not kept up with the cost of basics like food and housing, especially for the class of people who provide a lot of the basic services we all want, but no one seems to want to pay more for. (This is not necessarily a matter of people being Scrooges, but more of these services being handled by middleman companies, so that there's not an obvious connection between the price paid and the wage doled out to the worker). So we have more and more people who have no slack in their budgets to absorb shocks, leaving them having to borrow to cover surprises, and thus becoming caught in various scarcity traps that just breed more and more scarcity. They're not that different from the Mesopotamian peasants who were being reduced to debt-peons.

[Audrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know very little of early history, and this book gave some insight into that, as well as the different ways early societies dealt with debt, land ownership, and daily economics. The book could have used a vigorous copy-edit, as typos and repetition sometimes made it hard to understand the point the writer was making. Overall, I'm glad I read it. Gives me a lot to think about as I watch/read economic news!

[Alicia Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Declare a jubilee year! Hammurabi 2020!

They figured out 4000 or so years ago that consumer/plebeian debt is bad for society. Jesus knew it, too. The ancient Romans weren't keen on reducing debt, and instead let the indebted develop into serfs. And so on.

Summary: "What can't be paid, won't be paid."

[Kevin Carson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starts with anthropology-based speculation on rise of cattle-money and debt in pre-state village society, and jumps to temple economies and periodic royal cancellation of debt, but is extremely sketchy on the period in between and the institutional mechanisms of how interest arose.

[Sanjay Varma · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a very convincing read, and will change your perspective on history.

This book gets 2 stars for its writing, and 5 stars for its ideas. I can understand why the author writes this way. He is a scholar and translator. He has thought very carefully how to translate the source documents (cuneiform tablets) and so he is careful to use consistent words and phrases to describe concepts. Good scholarship, but it makes for repetitive reading.

When I was in my twenties I went through a phase exploring the films of Pier Paolo Pasolini who made a film about the life of Jesus that was described as a "Marxist interpretation." After reading Hudson's book, I felt like that idea of caring for the poor had a new meaning. Hudson explains that there was a culture of wealth redistribution that existed for thousands of years and was considered central to organizing a fair society. The civil wars of the late Roman Republic finally ended this approach, which was replaced by unrestrained theft by rich landowners and loss of freedom to debt bondage to the multitudes. Debt forgiveness (which is wealth redistribution) as a concept was lost. The Roman Empire and the early Christian church transmuted these Marxist ideas into an generalized care for the poor through charity.

[Al Owski · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book should be required reading for economists, theologians, political analysts, and lay persons trying to understand the world as it is and perhaps catch a glimpse of a world that could be.

The author makes his case that when Jesus told the parable of the unmerciful servant, the scope of his teaching went far beyond personal offenses. He meant actual financial debt. And in declaring Jubilee, Jesus was simply echoing the prophets, the Torah, and ancient Mesopotamia before that. The moral and practical issue raised by the author is that debt must not become permanent enslavement.

Modern religious teaching in the West is totally in sync with our economic ideology, that the creditor’s claims are sacrosanct over any other consideration of its deleterious effects on society. Throughout history, there is a pattern of wealth extraction that deprives the lower classes of their means of self-support. It turns owners into renters, into serfs, and finally into homeless vagabonds. The author highlights wise leaders throughout history that understood this pattern was destructive to society (and their reign) and as a result, proclaimed clean slate debt forgiveness (the Jewish Jubilee).

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Phew. A thorough and unambigous account of how rulers in ancient societies regularly annulled the debts of citizens who'd fallen into debt bondage that exceeded their ability to pay back the full loan (+ interest in later periods), because of a crop failure in some season or whatever, and how those debt annulments were essential to the continued stability of society (so debtors wouldn't have to keep working or have to forfeit their subsistence lands and themselves and their family to private creditors so they could supply corvee labor and military service to the state). Quite dry and repetitive but definitely a must read for understanding how economies of ancient societies worked and how private credit (and usury) tied debtors to debt bondage, how the real goal of creditors was basically always the subsistence lands the debtors pledged as collateral, and how private wealth always inevitably found ways to circumvent and eventually overpower the state. Dr Michael Hudson proving yet again how he is a fucking chad.

[Seth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not super well edited or organized, too many arcane details of Sumerian and Babylonian history for the non-specialist (and, strangely, not enough on Greece and Rome). I was most interested in the biblical discussions, which were suitably interesting but could have used more history of theological interpretations (i.e. Medieval usury laws and their eventual abandonment). Hopefully this book provides some of the raw material for a more complete volume written from either an openly Christian or a more thematic historical perspective.

[AlmantasVT · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the greatest nonfiction I can think of, possibly the greatest book I've ever read? Has fierce competition from The Great Divergence but realistically I love the hyperfocus of this book. I have fallen in love with Sumerian accounting, and I never shut up about it, and I'm genuinely mad that I do not have a meaningful angle by which I can become an Assyrologist. Babylonian Madness is my drug of choice.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

really thorough and deeply considered examination of the history of debt forgiveness as essential to near eastern society. i def thought there would be more about the applicability of this observation in modernity (and it's not short on that!) but it's not weaker for that.

[Matěj Schneider · Rating 5 out of 5]

❤

[Luís Garcia · Rating 5 out of 5]

(read in Beijing, China)

[JoséMaría BlancoWhite · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the living authors to be followed, mo doubt. Makes history, and even ancient history, relevant today. Thanks to Pepe Escobar for pointing this writer out.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hudson's publisher is in dire need a decent copy editor, but don't let that distract you from this extremely interesting, informative, and valuable work.

This book is the culmination of decades of research and collaboration with archeologists from Harvard's Peabody Museum. In it Hudson traces the origin of money, credit, and interest, as well as the cyclical debt jubilees which which kept Mesopotamian economies in working order for thousands of years.

Following David Graeber, Hudson sees the concept of debt rising from early gift-based economies. That concept was carried forward to the first complex societies and their palace-oriented economies where, based on meticulously detailed archeological evidence, our current concept of money was invented, along with compound interest and financial credit:

The origins of money are thus grounded in the enterprise and specialization of labor in palaces and temples of Sumer and Babylonia.

Following this, the gist of Hudson's study is the history and concept of what can most familiarly be described as debt jubilee: the periodic wiping clean of debts from the credit system of bronze and early iron age societies of Mesopotamia. Hudson documents how these debt jubilees were key to maintaining economic equilibrium for thousands of years.

In another vocabulary all this could be called the history of the social category of class war. It was fixed at the birth of the related ideas of money, credit, and interest-bearing loans. For several millennia there was a way of stabilizing this class war through the function of the debt jubilee. However, since the Hellenic age this function was slowly destroyed, and we were left with more or less universal and one-sided domination of wealth. Two related points summarize the cause and effect well:

Most fortunes throughout history have been obtained by appropriating the public domain and other land by military seizure, insider dealing, foreclosure by creditors, or purchase at distress prices – followed by a shedding of tax obligations. Ar some point this appropriation of land and natural resources reaches a high enough degree to enable the expropriators to become the de facto government.

And then:

The burden of debt tends to exceed the ability of debtors to pay. This has been the major cause of economic polarization from antiquity to modern times. Yet today's popular ideology blames debtors, as if when their arrears are a personal choice rather than stemming from economic strains that compel them to run up debts simply to survive.

The ramifications for our present times are clear; the relationship between debtor and creditor has basically not changed form in the in the last 5000 years. Overall, I find it a very compelling argument.

[Kasparas · Rating 1 out of 5]

This books attempts to answer two questions - have debt forgiveness been practiced in the past and how does this practice evolved over time. Anything outside the boundaries of these questions is left unexplored.


So the subject of the book is a historical analysis rather than economics - this is a crucial point that I wish I knew before reading. You won't find here any sort of formal treatment on what the phenomenon of debt is, no numbers, no graphs, no math at all. Instead you'll get to read a detailed account of all the Sumerian kings and their politics. This is to be expected for a history book, but as to whatever little is left for actual economics is incredibly shallow.


Debt forgiveness is indeed possible, I'll agree to that. It's but a mere tool invented by us and it can be fashioned in whatever way we want. But what of it? Should we cancel all debts all the time? Should we do it every time a new government comes into power? Maybe more often? Are there any negative consequences for that? Is there a point where debt cancellation is more detrimental then beneficial? Where is the line?


None of these questions are even close to being touched - and that's what I find most disappointing. The author no doubt takes a strong position in favour of debt cancellation in modern times, but makes no effort to rigorously consider what economic outcome that would entail. His arguments are based on ancient history and traditional socialist values, but not mathematics.


Again, I'm not critiquing the author's position itself - I may too agree that in some cases debt cancellation can be beneficial. It's the weak arguments and lack of substance that disappoint.


Also, what doesn't help is the inordinate amount of repetition in the book. The premise of this work could've easily fit into a blog article but was well overextended to 10 times that.


Overall, I'm very disappointed. It's one of those few cases where I haven't learnt anything and feel like my time has been wasted.

[Denis Mcgrath · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I think of the Bronze Age of the Near East I am reminded of a walk through the British Museum several years ago. Who would guess the that the clay tablets from the Near East Bronze Age with the cuneiform writing were the accounting records of earlier dynasties, temples and powerful landowners locked in struggles over debt , power and land/crop acquisition. One of the key challenges was balancing credit and debt and mitigating usury so craftsmen and farmers and or their families would not be held in bondage by the ruler or a creditor class. Periodic “Forgiveness of debt” through a Jubilee year or a change of ruler would free the disenfranchised for corvee labor or warfare in behalf of the ruler. The cancellation of debt in later centuries became embedded in Mosaic Law and Jesus’ admonition “ Forgive us our debts”. Unfortunately this practice was not adhered to and is considered utopian by many economists who insist that debts must be paid. The author makes the case through the study of Near Eastern economic history that this concept and practice was successful and should be reconsidered. The practice is very pertinent to our own epoch in terms of social justice in order to avoid economic foreclosure and collapse and the creation of a huge dependent underclass.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would love to give this book a 5/5 because I believe the its subject matter is of extreme importance for everyone living under the financial capitalism of the West in the 21st century. This book does a fabulous job of introducing in the first few dozen pages the topics he goes on to cover in detail over the next 200. It not only presents the historical drama of Ancient Near East economics (especially as regards the first appearances of debt and money), but expertly relates it to our own dire economic situation nowadays in the West, which likes to consider itself Judeo-Christian although it is anything but, at least as regards the handling of debt.

The reasons I cannot give this book 5/5 stars are mostly due to poor editing, formatting, and the physical edition of the book. Firstly, the book is tall and wide with average-sized font, totaling around 300 total pages of content—it's an awkward shape to hold or carry, and I would prefer it be more standardized dimensions, even if it meant adding 50 pages to the total count. Secondly, the editing is bad. Like really bad. I wasn't looking for editing errors, but they would jump off the page because they were so obvious—clear and simple spelling and formatting mistakes that should take one skimming read-through to fix were on about 10% of the pages. In some cases entire paragraphs were repeated verbatim right after each other, or chapter introductions were seemingly left out. This leads me to the third complaint: the organization. The organization of this book, while not terrible, could have been exponentially improved with the help of some semi-competent editors. Hudson repeats points, skips forward and backwards, and goes on tangents that seem better suited for different sections.

This book is extremely important in its subject matter, and it spends a majority of its pages explaining how the status quo of modern economic thinking (under the power exercises by financial capitalism) is mistaken, rightfully so. But it hurts its own credibility and understandability by being poorly organized and edited, in addition to the awkward printing of the only available edition.

I'd highly recommend this book to anyone who can look past the occasional editorial mistakes.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Call it 3.5 stars...although I did take a lot from this book, it is not particularly engaging or well-written imo. There is relatively little explanatory "tying together" or editorializing by the author; many sections lapse into very dry historical chronologies with little analysis. Reads like the textbook for a college history/economics class...believe I got this on my reading list as it was mentioned in Graeber's Debt, which is written in a much more accessible, interesting style. This is more suited to the academic with a pre-existing understanding of the period's main figures, empires/rulers, terminology, etc. rather than the layman. Given the title I expected there to be more focus on the Biblical aspect of debt forgiveness, which is a relatively small portion of the book. Cherry on top, it's riddled with various typographical & formatting errors - misspellings/missing letters, missing punctuation, a missing illustration (the caption is there with a blank space above), and even a whole duplicate paragraph.

[Jeff Freeburg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very important and well researched book re the history of money, debt, 'jubilee' or debt forgiveness, etc. Most (All really) of what is taught is simply myth, or worse, mere propaganda. This book (and a similar book by David Graeber) is a useful antidote to what is a continuing and perpetual struggle between creditors and debtors which in turn drives the most intractable economic conflicts. To give one example - the burying of young Americans in public debt that cannot be paid back.

I'd give it five stars but the editing and writing is really not up to par and the authors ideology is a bit too rigid for a reader to see if there are alternative monetary/debt reforms.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book needs an editor. Some parts of it had typographical errors. Also, I sense Michael Hudson is simping to China. China has human rights violations, an oppressive one-party system that benefits Xi Jinping, and poor infrastructure when it comes to the Three Gorges Dam and handling massive projects. The Three Gorges Dam could potentially kill 400 million people in China. The American empire is not that compassionate nor infrastructurally great, either. Michael Hudson has some good points in this book. But his earlier works are a lot better.

[Brett Lindenfelser · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author makes some interesting points on the little-known bronze age economy. Plenty of archeological and biblical evidence is presented to make his case that debt jubilees were used in ancient civilizations to stabilize economies and prevent oligarchs from usurping power from the monarchs.

[Tommy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gonna have to brush up on your ancient Near East history before tackling this.

[Lukasz]

recommendation: [Money and Debt and Digital Contracts - Brewster Kahle at Devcon 5 - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyaWF...)