Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth

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Bloomsbury Publishing, Aug 1, 2012 - Business & Economics - 240 pages
'A fascinating, freewheeling examination of ideas of debt, balance and revenge in history, society and literature - Atwood has again struck upon our most current anxieties' The Times

'A stimulating, learned, and stylish read from an eminent author writing from a heartfelt perspective ... very provocative' Conrad Black

In this wide-ranging history of debt Margaret Atwood investigates its many meanings through the ages, from ancient times to the current global financial meltdown. Many of us wonder: how could we have let such a collapse happen? How old or inevitable is this human pattern of debt?

From the earliest days of finance in ancient Babylon to the modern machinations of the World Bank, the acclaimed author of The Handmaid's Tale turns her incisive eye onto one of humanity's oldest ideas.

Imaginative, topical and insightful, Payback urges us to reconsider our ideas of ownership and debt - before it is too late.

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About the author (2012)

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than

thirty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays.

In addition to the classic The Handmaid's Tale, her novels include Cat's Eye, which was

shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Alias Grace,

which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the

Premio Mondello in Italy, and The Blind

Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize. Her most recent novel, Oryx and Crake was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2003. She lives in Toronto, Canada.

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