The world's leading Marxist geographer and economist guides general readers through major concepts in capitalism and Marx's masterwork
For decades, David Harvey has been teaching Marx's work, particularly Capital, to great acclaim. He has analysed chapter by chapter - sometimes line-by-line - Marx's three volumes and the Grundrisse. This new book opens up the mental universe of that work for a general reader.
In The Story of Capital, Harvey takes a synoptic approach to the conceptual architecture as a whole and guides us through the key moments, from labour and technology to the state and geopolitics, via the profit rate, social reproduction, the relationship to nature, fictitious capital and the return of the rentiers. In doing so, Harvey has produced a work which will become a key reference for all those trying to grasp the nature of contemporary capitalism.
"David Harvey unites the impossible: a broad global theoretical approach to capitalism with detailed economic analyses. As every good dialectician, he knows how to recognize a general tendency in what appears as marginal accidents of economic daily life. His knowledge goes well beyond the generalities of commodity fetishism and capitalist exploitation of nature. Although often critical of Marx, he uses Marx to explain problems we are experiencing today, from 2008 meltdown to the return of rents and the implications of Trump’s playing with tariffs. His book is for everyone who wants to really understand the mess we are in, which means – it is for everyone." —Slavoj Žižek
David Harvey teaches at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and is the author of many books, including Social Justice and the City, The Condition of Postmodernity, The Limits to Capital, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Spaces of Global Capitalism, and A Companion to Marx's Capital. His website is http://davidharvey.org
The world's leading Marxist geographer and economist guides general readers through major concepts in capitalism and Marx's masterwork
For decades, David Harvey has been teaching Marx's work, particularly Capital, to great acclaim. He has analysed chapter by chapter - sometimes line-by-line - Marx's three volumes and the Grundrisse. This new book opens up the mental universe of that work for a general reader.
In The Story of Capital, Harvey takes a synoptic approach to the conceptual architecture as a whole and guides us through the key moments, from labour and technology to the state and geopolitics, via the profit rate, social reproduction, the relationship to nature, fictitious capital and the return of the rentiers. In doing so, Harvey has produced a work which will become a key reference for all those trying to grasp the nature of contemporary capitalism.
Reviews
"David Harvey unites the impossible: a broad global theoretical approach to capitalism with detailed economic analyses. As every good dialectician, he knows how to recognize a general tendency in what appears as marginal accidents of economic daily life. His knowledge goes well beyond the generalities of commodity fetishism and capitalist exploitation of nature. Although often critical of Marx, he uses Marx to explain problems we are experiencing today, from 2008 meltdown to the return of rents and the implications of Trump’s playing with tariffs. His book is for everyone who wants to really understand the mess we are in, which means – it is for everyone." —Slavoj Žižek
Author
David Harvey teaches at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and is the author of many books, including Social Justice and the City, The Condition of Postmodernity, The Limits to Capital, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Spaces of Global Capitalism, and A Companion to Marx's Capital. His website is http://davidharvey.org
