L' enigma del capitale e il prezzo della sua sopravvivenza

I first read this book in 2013, two years after it was written, and found it an eye-opening critique of events leading up to the global financial crisis. I came across a review of the work in the London Review of Books and this encouraged we to revisit some of the passages I had highlighted when I fi Leggi tutto

Picked this up because Harvey was the only person I had run into who had a plausible explanation why $500K+ condo towers were suddenly being thrown up in downtrodden parts of Brooklyn, as summarized in n+1: Harvey’s answer was that under capitalism land becomes “a pure financial asset”; land price is Leggi tutto

In this book, David Harvey tries to explain the causes of the current economic crisis, which he argues is the last in a string of crises that started roughly in the early 1970s, but for which the ground-work was laid basically at the end of World War II. Harvey argues that the boom/bust cycles we've Leggi tutto

Every now and then I read something that helps make sense of the really big picture; this is one of those books – and it is simply superb. For at least the last 25 years or so I have been involved in work with friends and comrades (I use the word broadly) on ways to make sense of the post-Really-Exi Leggi tutto

I wish this book had had more footnotes and less exclamation points. Harvey's strong points are on his analysis of urban living and how capital moves from country to country. I suppose I agree with his analysis that there is something about capitalism in general that is doomed to fail (the constant q Leggi tutto

David Harvey is a remarkable scholar. His work on postmodernity transformed my thinking on the subject. The Enigma of Capital is similarly revelatory. This is the finest analysis I have read of the financial crisis. Most impressively, he explores why capitalism is "irrational" and probes the problem Leggi tutto

So concise and yet could be made still more concise. Just slightly too obtuse (but only slightly) to be accessible to the lay reader as an introduction to the 2008 collapse. Very recommended, however, to anyone who wants all the disparate puzzle pieces of neoliberalism brought together into one chro Leggi tutto

AS much as I agreed with his views and thought his analysis to be dead on, I oculdn't get excited about reading this book. In order to dissuade people from the prevailing neo-liberal bs, leftist writers need to be far more readable.

Meandering, few references, little statistical analysis. Topped off with a round of social movement dungeon master. What's not to like?