- Email: [email protected]
Spaces of capital: towards a critical geography
928
Book reviews / Political Geography 22 (2003) 917–930
cism to be levied at this part of the book it is that there is no consideration of the government’s use of the voluntary environmental sector (the groups that make up the environmental movement discussed earlier in the book) as an instrument of policy. Overall, this is an excellent text. Lecturers and students will enjoy using it. Better still, students will understand it, but will also be challenged by it. The reader is introduced to theories and models almost without noticing them, but in a way that should ensure they are remembered and can be used effectively in other settings. Twelve years ago, I began to teach environmental politics, policy and management to undergraduate public administration students. No appropriate text was available. Neil Carter has provided exactly what I was looking for then and exactly what I suspect many others continue to look for. Reference McCulloch, A. (1988). Shades of Green: Ideas in the British Green Movement. Teaching Politics, 17(2), 186–207.
A. McCulloch Edge Hill College of Higher Education, St Helens Road, Ormskirk L39 4QP, Lancashire UK E-mail address: [email protected] doi:10.1016/S0962-6298(02)00080-X
Spaces of capital: towards a critical geography David Harvey; Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, 2001, pp. xi + 429, ISBN 07486 1541 5 (pb) David Harvey is that comparative rarity in the discipline of geography – a thinker whose writings have been influential across theoretical expositions and social, political and cultural analyses of change in contemporary societies. Spaces of Capital gives readers an opportunity to view his selections from three decades of critically important and influential writings. The sub-title, Towards a Critical Geography, suggests something of a coherent project in these writings, though Harvey does not claim that. In his brief preface, he does provide a context for his writings in the contradiction of western hostility to Marxism in the 1960’s against a growing global interest in its emancipatory project. This encouraged him to look to Marxism – and notably he identifies with Baran and Sweezy’s political economy, Raymond Williams’ cultural critique and the British Marxist Historians - for a critical theory to explain the political rise and decline of radicalism in the late 1960’s and 1970’s and offer a basis for understanding consequent theoretical challenges and social changes.
Book reviews / Political Geography 22 (2003) 917–930
929
The book is an uneven mixture of the important and perhaps indulgent. It consists of two sections, and begins with an interview with New Left Review in 2000 that provides some reflection upon the trajectory of his work (but see below). Whilst it provides a sketch of his personal journey and some insight into his reflections on his work, it reads as something of an opportunity missed for critical engagement, with some discussion of his analyses of contemporary capitalism only apparent – and without depth - in the last four pages. The first section focuses on essays that explore the relationship between geography as science and as politics. In this, the essays on Lattimore, Federal Hill, Raymond Williams and the study of local militancy may have a personal resonance, but other than their intrinsic insight (particularly the latter essay) their inclusion does not extend an understanding of Harvey’s work. His essays on geography and public policy, geography and science and his historical materialist manifesto for geography read as dated and of limited, historical value. Of this section, his revised paper on social movements in the city and cartographic identities, both post-The Condition of Postmodernity and building on its themes and ideas, are the main source of richness, if both are incomplete and undeveloped staging posts for Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference and Spaces of Hope. The second section focuses more on the development of spatiality in critical analysis. In sequential order, beginning with early writings in Antipode, we follow the development of spatial critique through essays on the reconstruction of a spatially informed historical materialism, Marxist theory of the state and philosophical discourse through Hegel to Marx. These essays then focus on specifying the geopolitics of capitalist production and class, the movement from managerialism to entrepreneuralism in urban management, the spatial dimensions to class power and globalisation, culture and commodification. This sequence of essays makes a more coherent read and supports the argument that Harvey’s work has a core trajectory in the development of critical engagements between his discipline – geography – and the oeuvre of both Marxist theory and contemporary critiques. What, then, does this collection offer the reader? In one sense, a collection of historical essays, many precursors to more established and more in-depth works, might be regarded as having significance only to those who want collateral understanding of debates in critical geography and Harvey’s work. There is no overarching or contextualising narrative or reflection (which is regrettable if we are to take these essays as being important, and a drawback to the text - even brief introductions and explanations for the choices he makes would have been edifying), and only three chapters are unpublished in their present form. Geography scholars would not have to consult a good library long to amass the essays at source and perhaps in context with contemporaneous debates, and the collection does move unevenly between general theoretical reflections germane to the development of a critical geography and some less compelling pieces that are best simply seen as examples of such work. There are three reasons, however, why this collection, whatever its weaknesses, has some value. First, what it does is to underline Harvey’s role in developing the spatial dimension of radical theorising that has become such a contested zone in Marxist debates with post-modern thinking. The essays represent, in different ways,
930
Book reviews / Political Geography 22 (2003) 917–930
a recognition that spatial forms and considerations cannot be reduced to economic or political determinants but are critical factors in understanding social, political, economic and cultural change, and conceiving how radical thinking can permeate and challenge prevailing ideological configurations of contemporary societies. It also underlines, with the judicious selection of essays in Part 2 in particular, how influential Harvey has been in defining the contours for a critical geography, taking in theoretical, political, economic and cultural studies but reinforcing the sense in which Harvey brings those concerns within critical geography as a particular approach to radical critique. In this sense, Harvey’s essays demonstrate how important his contribution to making a critical geography, which Political Geography, other geography journals and other writers have come to populate. Harvey is the first to acknowledge radical geography was already developing on his arrival at John Hopkins from Cambridge in the 1970’s, but it is reading Part 2 in sequence that his contribution becomes evident. In this respect, this is a historical document of some importance to geographers reflecting on the development of their discipline. Finally, and perhaps as importantly to the generation of readers most likely to add this to their bookshelves, it provides an exemplar of doing critical thought, elegantly written and persuasively argued. Harvey is always engaging, always accessible, always questioning and always seeing through the superficiality of narratives to deeper points of critical analysis. Even the more local and personal choices exhibit the craft that has led to Harvey’s work being seen as so influential in the development of recent critical thought. Alongside The Limits to Capital, The Condition of Postmodernity and perhaps Spaces of Hope, this will give a a representation of both the development and importance of David Harvey’s work. Paul Reynolds Edge Hill College, Centre for Studies in the Social Sciences, St Helens Road, Ormskirk L39 4QP, UK E-mail address: [email protected] doi:10.1016/S0962-6298(02)00091-4
Book reviews / Political Geography 22 (2003) 917–930
cism to be levied at this part of the book it is that there is no consideration of the government’s use of the voluntary environmental sector (the groups that make up the environmental movement discussed earlier in the book) as an instrument of policy. Overall, this is an excellent text. Lecturers and students will enjoy using it. Better still, students will understand it, but will also be challenged by it. The reader is introduced to theories and models almost without noticing them, but in a way that should ensure they are remembered and can be used effectively in other settings. Twelve years ago, I began to teach environmental politics, policy and management to undergraduate public administration students. No appropriate text was available. Neil Carter has provided exactly what I was looking for then and exactly what I suspect many others continue to look for. Reference McCulloch, A. (1988). Shades of Green: Ideas in the British Green Movement. Teaching Politics, 17(2), 186–207.
A. McCulloch Edge Hill College of Higher Education, St Helens Road, Ormskirk L39 4QP, Lancashire UK E-mail address: [email protected] doi:10.1016/S0962-6298(02)00080-X
Spaces of capital: towards a critical geography David Harvey; Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, 2001, pp. xi + 429, ISBN 07486 1541 5 (pb) David Harvey is that comparative rarity in the discipline of geography – a thinker whose writings have been influential across theoretical expositions and social, political and cultural analyses of change in contemporary societies. Spaces of Capital gives readers an opportunity to view his selections from three decades of critically important and influential writings. The sub-title, Towards a Critical Geography, suggests something of a coherent project in these writings, though Harvey does not claim that. In his brief preface, he does provide a context for his writings in the contradiction of western hostility to Marxism in the 1960’s against a growing global interest in its emancipatory project. This encouraged him to look to Marxism – and notably he identifies with Baran and Sweezy’s political economy, Raymond Williams’ cultural critique and the British Marxist Historians - for a critical theory to explain the political rise and decline of radicalism in the late 1960’s and 1970’s and offer a basis for understanding consequent theoretical challenges and social changes.
Book reviews / Political Geography 22 (2003) 917–930
929
The book is an uneven mixture of the important and perhaps indulgent. It consists of two sections, and begins with an interview with New Left Review in 2000 that provides some reflection upon the trajectory of his work (but see below). Whilst it provides a sketch of his personal journey and some insight into his reflections on his work, it reads as something of an opportunity missed for critical engagement, with some discussion of his analyses of contemporary capitalism only apparent – and without depth - in the last four pages. The first section focuses on essays that explore the relationship between geography as science and as politics. In this, the essays on Lattimore, Federal Hill, Raymond Williams and the study of local militancy may have a personal resonance, but other than their intrinsic insight (particularly the latter essay) their inclusion does not extend an understanding of Harvey’s work. His essays on geography and public policy, geography and science and his historical materialist manifesto for geography read as dated and of limited, historical value. Of this section, his revised paper on social movements in the city and cartographic identities, both post-The Condition of Postmodernity and building on its themes and ideas, are the main source of richness, if both are incomplete and undeveloped staging posts for Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference and Spaces of Hope. The second section focuses more on the development of spatiality in critical analysis. In sequential order, beginning with early writings in Antipode, we follow the development of spatial critique through essays on the reconstruction of a spatially informed historical materialism, Marxist theory of the state and philosophical discourse through Hegel to Marx. These essays then focus on specifying the geopolitics of capitalist production and class, the movement from managerialism to entrepreneuralism in urban management, the spatial dimensions to class power and globalisation, culture and commodification. This sequence of essays makes a more coherent read and supports the argument that Harvey’s work has a core trajectory in the development of critical engagements between his discipline – geography – and the oeuvre of both Marxist theory and contemporary critiques. What, then, does this collection offer the reader? In one sense, a collection of historical essays, many precursors to more established and more in-depth works, might be regarded as having significance only to those who want collateral understanding of debates in critical geography and Harvey’s work. There is no overarching or contextualising narrative or reflection (which is regrettable if we are to take these essays as being important, and a drawback to the text - even brief introductions and explanations for the choices he makes would have been edifying), and only three chapters are unpublished in their present form. Geography scholars would not have to consult a good library long to amass the essays at source and perhaps in context with contemporaneous debates, and the collection does move unevenly between general theoretical reflections germane to the development of a critical geography and some less compelling pieces that are best simply seen as examples of such work. There are three reasons, however, why this collection, whatever its weaknesses, has some value. First, what it does is to underline Harvey’s role in developing the spatial dimension of radical theorising that has become such a contested zone in Marxist debates with post-modern thinking. The essays represent, in different ways,
930
Book reviews / Political Geography 22 (2003) 917–930
a recognition that spatial forms and considerations cannot be reduced to economic or political determinants but are critical factors in understanding social, political, economic and cultural change, and conceiving how radical thinking can permeate and challenge prevailing ideological configurations of contemporary societies. It also underlines, with the judicious selection of essays in Part 2 in particular, how influential Harvey has been in defining the contours for a critical geography, taking in theoretical, political, economic and cultural studies but reinforcing the sense in which Harvey brings those concerns within critical geography as a particular approach to radical critique. In this sense, Harvey’s essays demonstrate how important his contribution to making a critical geography, which Political Geography, other geography journals and other writers have come to populate. Harvey is the first to acknowledge radical geography was already developing on his arrival at John Hopkins from Cambridge in the 1970’s, but it is reading Part 2 in sequence that his contribution becomes evident. In this respect, this is a historical document of some importance to geographers reflecting on the development of their discipline. Finally, and perhaps as importantly to the generation of readers most likely to add this to their bookshelves, it provides an exemplar of doing critical thought, elegantly written and persuasively argued. Harvey is always engaging, always accessible, always questioning and always seeing through the superficiality of narratives to deeper points of critical analysis. Even the more local and personal choices exhibit the craft that has led to Harvey’s work being seen as so influential in the development of recent critical thought. Alongside The Limits to Capital, The Condition of Postmodernity and perhaps Spaces of Hope, this will give a a representation of both the development and importance of David Harvey’s work. Paul Reynolds Edge Hill College, Centre for Studies in the Social Sciences, St Helens Road, Ormskirk L39 4QP, UK E-mail address: [email protected] doi:10.1016/S0962-6298(02)00091-4