World History Spine · Origins
Writing, money & law
Three inventions that run civilization: writing (born as accounting), money (credit before coins), and written law (Hammurabi). All three solve the same problem: trust among strangers at scale.
Step 1 of 6 · Overview30 min read ·
Key idea
Prereqs: Mesopotamia & Egypt. Next: Ancient Greece & Athens. Ties to *Broken Money* (Alden), *Debt: The First 5,000 Years* (Graeber) and History of Money & Markets.Next: 1. Writing began as bookkeeping