Product Description

David Harvey is unquestionably the most influential, as well as the most cited, geographer of his generation. His reputation extends well beyond geography to sociology, planning, architecture, anthropology, literary studies and political science. This book brings together for the first time seminal articles published over three decades on the tensions between geographical knowledges and political power and on the capitalist production of space. Classic essays reprinted here include 'On the history and present condition of geography', 'The geography of capitalist accumulation' and 'The spatial fix: Hegel, von Thunen, and Marx'. Two new chapters represent the author's most recent thinking on cartographic identities and social movements. David Harvey's persistent challenge to the claims of ethical neutrality on behalf of science and geography runs like a thread throughout the book. He seeks to explain the geopolitics of capitalism and to ground spatial theory in social justice. In the process he engages with overlooked or misrepresented figures in the history of geography, placing them in the context of intellectual history.The presence here of Kant, Von Thunen, Humboldt, Lattimore, Leopold alongside Marx, Hegel, Heidegger, Darwin, Malthus, Foucault and many others shows the deep roots and significance of geographical thought. At the same time David Harvey's telling observations of current social, environmental, and political trends show just how vital that thought is to the understanding of the world as it is and as it might be.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #294326 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

About the Author
David Harvey is Professor of Geography at the Johns Hopkins University and adjunct Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics. He was previously Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford. His books include Social Justice and the City (1973); The Limits to Capital (1982); The Urban Experience (1988); The Condition of Postmodernity (1989); and Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference (1996). He received the Outstanding Contributor award from the Association of American Geographers in 1980; the Anders Retzius Gold Medal from the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography in 1989; the Patron's Medal from the Royal Geographical Society and the Vautrin Lud Prize in France in 1995.

Customer Reviews

A collection of essays of differing quality
"Spaces of Capital" is the title under which David Harvey has collected a series of essays or observations written by him for a variety of geographical and economical journals. The essays span the whole period of Harvey's working life, and therefore trace the development of his view and thoughts closely. This is interesting at a sort of 'meta' level, but it has the downside that the first half of the book is still very much in the orthodox geographical mold and mostly quite vague and noncommittal. Although already in the first essays he proposes a more critical geographical science, and lashes out at the McCarthyism in the field, they still lack the coherent framework that the Marxist point of view would later give to his insights.

Of most interest, for this reason, are the last three or four essays in the book. These are in fact very good and worthwhile, dealing with his theory of rent, the theory of uneven geographical development, and the way capitalist accumulation affects and is affected by geographical structures, mostly in the form of immobile fixed capital. The essay called "The Spatial Fix" is more historical, and goes into the role of space and geography in the works of Marx, Von Thünen and Hegel; this is probably the most interesting part of the book for philosophers and historians.

If you're interested in the later Harvey's insights into Marxist political economy and geographical differences, I would recommend buying "Limits to Capital" instead. This book is mostly of use as an addition to an already well-stocked 'critical theory' shelf, for the specialist. Inhabitants of Baltimore, MD, might also want to buy this for the quite extensive study on the political economy of the city that is included in this book.