Book Review - Debt, the first 5000 years

It's very rare that I give up on a non-fiction book half way through. Even if I find something tough going I will keep on reading or listening because I know I am learning something. However after giving "Debt, the first 5000 years" by David Graeber about 6 hours of my time I am throwing in the towel. Maybe it was the complex nature of the material in this book or maybe it's the fact that I chose to digest this via the audiobook format rather than in print but I have found this book not only very hard going, but I also can't tell you anything I have actually learnt in those 6 hours!

There were many points in the book when a concept is explained and I thought "Oh that's interesting, I think I get it". And then 30 seconds later the author will go on to explain why the idea in the last section is all wrong. But he then doesn't explain any alternatives that he thinks are right.

I finally decided to stop listening last night when the author tried to actually define the true meaning of the word "Debt" (a pretty important thing to be able to do considering the title). After 15 minutes of waffling I was still baffled.

As I have already said, maybe this book works in the print format, but for me at least it did not work as an audiobook so I wouldn't recommend it to others.