Spaces of Capital: Towards a Critical Geography [Paperback]

Harvey (anthropology, CUNY Graduate Sch.) is one of the most influential geographers of the later 20th century, especially as concerns the relationship among politics, capitalism, and the social aspects of geographical theory. His previous and still cogent works include Explanation in Geography, Social Justice and the City, and Spaces of Hope. His new book provides the daring reader with an introduction to fields of inquiry collectively termed the new geography or critical geography. Harvey delves deeply into the collective psyche of geography as a discipline and attacks long-held assumptions of scientific neutrality within it, particularly in the chapter titled "Population, Resources, and the Ideology of Science." He also gives a chronology of his own geographic thought and his philosophical underpinnings such as Hegel, Marx, Kant, Heidegger, and the like and a unique perspective on capitalism as a driving force in shaping the physical arrangement of societies. Most geographers may take much of this book as an indictment against their chosen field, but Harvey certainly gives us much to consider. Appropriate for larger public libraries and academic libraries. John E. Dockall, Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu
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David Harvey is one of geography's best-known social theorists and one of the most important voices on the academic left in the United States...at a time when the fashionable abstractions of hte bougrgeois left just do not seem cute anymore, Harvey's historical geographic materialist analysis offers a refreshingly real-and-imagined geography of radical hope.
TCRecord.org, Gregory Martin and Peter McLaren, both at UCLA.
Spanning nearly three decades of work, this collection shows David Harvey as steadfast in his commitments while he keeps up with changing times.---Iris Young, University of Chicago.
These wise reflections on intellectual movements and political battles of the recent past shows why David Harvey has become such an impressive figure of contemporary social critique. His fierce intellectual independence and equally insistent moral decency illuminate a concern for social justice that is primarily economic but extends into every sphere. No other scholar of our day has delved so deeply into the powers of capital to remake space and time, or argued so persuassively to place these processes at the core of all social thought.---Sharon Zukin, author of The Cultures of Cities.
David Harvey has done more than anyone else to demonstrate the centrality of geographical space in the evolution of human society under capitalism. He has done so in a constant dialogue with Marx, aware of the need to confront not just Marx's strengths but his weaknesses. Written over twenty-five years, these essays are an invaluable source of ideas on how human geography shapes and is in turn shaped by capitalist development. The book provides an excellent introduction to Harvey's work: it is essential reading for those interested in creative reinterpretations of Marx and in the historical geography of capitalism globally and locally.---Giovanni Arrighi, author of The Long Twentieth Century.
Spanning nearly three decades of work, this collection shows David Harvey as steadfast in his commitments while he keeps up with changing times.---Iris Young, The University of Chicago.
These wise reflections on intellectual movements and political battles of the recent past show why David Harvey has become such an impressive figure of contemporary social critique. His fierce intellectual independence and equally insistent moral decency illuminate a concern for social justice that is primarily economic but extends into every sphere. No other scholar of our day has delved so deeply into the powers of capital to remake space and time, or argued so persuasively to place these processes at teh core of all social thought.---Sharon Zukin, author of The Cultures of Cities.
David Harvey has done more than anyone else to demonstrate the centrality of geographical space in the evolution of human society under capitalism. He has done so in a constant dialogue with Marx, aware of the need to confront not just Marx's strengths but his weaknesses. Written over twenty-five years, these essays are an invaluable source of ideas on how human geography shapes and is in turn shaped by capitalist development. The book provides an excellent introduction to Harvey's work: it is essential reading for those interested in creative reinterpretations of Marx and in the historical geography of capitalism globally and locally.---Giovanni Arrighi, author of The Long Twentieth Century.
These wise reflections on intellectual movements and political battles of the recent past show why David Harvey has become such an impressive figure of contemporary social critique. His fierce intellectual independence and equally insistent moral decency illuminate a concern for social justice that is primarily economic but extends into every sphere. No other scholar of our day has delved so deeply into the powers of capital to remake space and time, or argued so persuasively to place these processes at the core of all social thought.---Sharon Zukin, author of The Cultures of Cities.
Harvey delves deeply into the collective psyche of geography as a discipline and attackslong-held assumptions of scientific neutrality within it... Most geographers may take much of this book as an indictment of their chosen field, but Harvey certainly gives us much to consider. Appropriate for larger public libraries and academic libraries. -- John E. Dockall, Library Journal