[ucaetano]

That's actually quite a poor book. It essentially defines debt as any, absolutely any, sense of liability towards another being. When you define it like that, it isn't only true that debt predate money, it's obvious.

Besides that, the book is a collection of anecdotes carefully selected to try to paint a coherent picture. It is clearly written by someone who doesn't understand economics, to a public that doesn't understand economics.

It is so full of basic mistakes that it is hard to decide if the problem is ignorance, laziness or malice.

But it sells well!

[joosters]

Can you give a few examples of the basic mistakes in the book, please?

[ucaetano]

Sure:

"Apple Computers is a famous example: it was founded by (mostly Republican) computer engineers who broke from IBM in Silicon Valley in the 1980s"

The level of stupidity in this quote is unbearable. Basic fact checking for 5 seconds on Google would have been enough...

Now take that and apply the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect.

And that's before we get into ignominious phrasing such as "I would like to end, then, by putting in a word for the non-industrious poor. At least they aren't hurting anyone."

Debt is a book written backwards. It starts with and idea: capitalism is bad and debt is the instrument of capitalism. It then piles up and links selected - but vague and frequently unsourced - anecdotes to try to create a logic supporting that idea.

From an economics perspective, it isn't even wrong. But it does sound appealing to anyone who has debt or dislikes capitalism. Therefore, I expect a lot of downvotes.

[Edit: typos]