The author enjoys upending the assumptions most people have about money without feeling like he has to stick to the assumptions that economists have built into their mathematics. One of these is the idea that during historical episodes where there was no or little cash, there was no money, pointing to the evidence for thriving credit activity millennia in the past without benefit of a system of coinage. I really liked the descriptions of non-Western cultures and what they used money for, which would lead very directly to a discussion of slavery and of the value of human life. In the last section of the book, he focuses on the modern era and the idea of the post-gold standard fiat currency based on the idea of debts which can never be retired ever. It was only when I got to the afterword that I found out that he had some first-hand involvement with the Occupy movement and specifically the proposals for debt forgiveness. This clarified earlier statements about the complicity of central governments in protecting the interests of creditors over debtors. It's a long book but it really held my interest throughout.