Spaces of Capital: Towards a Critical Geography


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Authors:
  • David Harvey

Description:



Spaces of Capital: Towards a Critical Geography
Reviews:

starsA collection of essays of differing quality
"spaces of the capital" is the title under which David Harvey gathered a series of tests or observations written by him for a variety of geographical and economic newspapers. The tests span all the period of the active life of Harvey, and thus trace the development of its sight and thoughts narrowly. It is interesting with a kind of ' méta ' of level, but it has tilted side that first half of the book is always infinitely in the orthodoxe mould geographical and most of the time completely vague and evasive. Although already in the first tests it proposes a more critical geographical science, and precipitated at McCarthyism in the field, they always miss logical framework that the Marxist point of view of would give later to his perspicacities. Majority of interest, for this reason, are the last three or four tests in the book. They are in fact very good and valid, treating its theory of rent, the theory of unequal geographical development, and the accumulation of capitalist in manner affects and is affected by the geographical structures, most of the time in the form of motionless fixed assets. The test called "the space difficulty" is more historical, and enters the role of space and the geography work of Marx, Von Thünen and Hegel; it is probably the part most interesting of the book for philosophers and historians. If you are interested by perspicacities of late Harvey in the political economy Marxist and the geographical differences, I would recommend to buy "limits with the capital" in the place. This book is useful most of the time like an addition for an already well-stored rack ' of critical theory ', for the specialist. The inhabitants of Baltimore, MANDELEVIUM, could also want to buy this for the completely wide study on the political economy of the city which is included in this book.


starsJim
It is unfortunate the turn that the field of Geography has made into the Marxist realm. While the academic side of geography takes comfort in the "feel good" ideas of this approach, it serves no purpose in advancing relevant work.

Do your self a favor - skip this book and go buy an old copy (prior to 1970) of almost any geography text. You will be much better served.


starsBrilliant revitalization of Geography
The influence of David Harvey on the academic discipline of geography cannot be overstated. With incredibly perseverance, Harvey called for greater ethical commitment right from the 1970s which saw the beginning of his career. This book charts the course of his views as they change from then till now. Before I tell you what the book is about, let me say a few words about the style: Harvey writes in incredibly moving and deceptively simple prose (though his ideas are as complicated as any of the Continental thinkers who dominate elite theory today). In a community of theorists who rival each other in being prolix and obscure, this is truly refreshing.

The first part of the book contains several essays, written between 1974 and 2000, all exploring two key themes:1) the discipline of geography and its relevance to today and 2) the nexus between certain forms of geographical knowledge and political power. Some essays are absolute gems. Specially noteworthy are the last two: City and Social Justice, and Cartographic Identities. In the first, Harvey theorizes the possibility of radical urban grassroots movements and the conditions for their 'success' (a bit problematic it must be admitted with its urbanist telos, specially for someone from the economic South like me) and in the second, he envisions a program for a synthetic study of (mostly mutually noncompatible) geographical knowledges constitued at different institutional sites (academic, the State apparatus, transnational orgs like IMF etc, multinational corporations, military, popular knowledge etc etc) as a task for geographers of the near future.

The second set of essays try with great skill (though it must be admitted that to someone not overly familiar with the historical-materialist tradition, they are hard to get through) to insert the thematics of space (especially important when one considers the growing unequality of development in today's world and the international (gendered) division of labor)in a historical-materialist tradition with the project of founding a historico-geographical materialist tradition.

In any case, WHATEVER your background read this book. You may not agree with everything but it will trulymake you question a lot of your received notions.



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--end of Spaces of Capital: Towards a Critical Geography