ABSTRACT

David Harvey is among the most influential Marxist thinkers of the last half century. This book offers a lucid and authoritative introduction to his work, with a structure designed to reflect the enduring topics and insights that serve to unify Harvey’s writings over a long period of time.

Harvey’s writings have exerted huge influence within the social sciences and the humanities. In addition, his work now commands a global readership among Left political activists and those interested in current world affairs. Harvey’s central preoccupation is capitalism and the impacts of its growth-obsessed, contradictory dynamics. His name is synonymous with key analytical concepts like ‘the spatial fix’ and ‘accumulation by dispossession’. This critical introduction to his thought is an essential companion for both new and more experienced readers. The critique of capitalism is one of the most important undertakings of our time, and Harvey’s work offers powerful tools to help us see why a ‘softer’ capitalism is insufficient and a post-capitalist future is necessary.

This book is an important resource for scholars and graduate students in geography, politics and many other disciplines across the social sciences and humanities.

chapter 1|5 pages

Introduction

chapter 2|27 pages

David Harvey

Geographer, Marxist and public intellectual

chapter 3|26 pages

Between philosophy and political practice

The power of critical theory

chapter 4|31 pages

Contradiction, perpetual change and crisis

The DNA of capitalism

chapter 6|31 pages

Capital unbound

The commodification of everything

chapter 7|28 pages

From structure to agency

The tangled human geographies of difference, inequality, solidarity and protest

chapter 9|23 pages

Marxism within and beyond the academy

Communicating critical thought in a ‘post-public’ era

chapter 10|4 pages

Conclusion

A Marxist for our time?