Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.14 AVERAGE
4.14 AVERAGE
I read this side by side and chapter by chapter with volume 1 of Capital. Having studied Marx a little, it was revelatory to read the whole text, and with Harvey as an amiable, logical, insightful guide. Harvey truly achieves his aim of helping you to read and appreciate Marx on his own terms. This book is a wonderful accompaniment for the reader of Marx.
26/2/2022: on second reading this still remains /the/ invaluable guide to reading Capital Volume 1. this time I read it in one go having read Volume 1, rather than section by section. Harvey remains insightful and interesting, challenging you to really think about what Marx is saying. Remains invaluable.
My own notes on volume 1 are here: https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2022/02/01/some-rough-notes-on-the-structure-of-capital-volume-1/
26/2/2022: on second reading this still remains /the/ invaluable guide to reading Capital Volume 1. this time I read it in one go having read Volume 1, rather than section by section. Harvey remains insightful and interesting, challenging you to really think about what Marx is saying. Remains invaluable.
My own notes on volume 1 are here: https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2022/02/01/some-rough-notes-on-the-structure-of-capital-volume-1/
Absolutely indispensable in my journey through Volume 1 of Capital. I tried to read every word of Marx's text, even if I did not understand it, so as to judge this book on its coverage and "mapping" as Harvey calls it, and while I probably missed about 50 pages (Chapter 25's historical examples were a snoozefest, sorry), I think Harvey did a fantastic job of providing a framework through which to approach Marx's work, while elaborating on context and popular interpretation of various passages. I hesitate to say it (and I get the sense Harvey would emphatically disagree), but I think one could read this without reading Marx's original text front to back and still get quite a lot out of it. I look forward to diving into his other books, A Brief History of Neoliberalism and The Limits of Capital, in the future. (Harvey's lectures at the People's Forum cover a lot of the material here are also great, btw.) Kudos to Professor Harvey - we are in great debt to him.
Easily the best companion to Capital that you can find.
challenging
informative
slow-paced
A great read to pair with capital
Very useful book to help demystify some of the stuff in Capital Volume 1. I disagree with quite a bit of what he says when he goes beyond Capital (particularly the focus on neoliberalism) but he connects it to Marx's work and seeing someone explicitly draw from it and developing it is useful. Most helpful early on - at parts it's limited to reiterating what Marx has said; understandable because the first couple of parts are definitely the toughest so it's not too big a deal. I do think he sometimes misses chances to argue a bit further. The main example is the labour theory of value - Marx didn't feel the need to justify it because it was commonly accepted at the time and Harvey only spends about a page (I think) doing so. Given that it's such an important part of what follows, it would have been nice to have a bit more time spent on it.
Overall though, very handy guide and I recommend it as a guide to your own understanding and interpretation.
(Couple of things: David Harvey recommends the Penguin edition, which is probably the best available, if you're planning on following along, and it's the one he quotes from with page numbers. However, the Penguin version comes with an appendix which is another chapter Marx wrote but didn't publish yet Harvey doesn't mention it at all. It's no big deal, but it would have been nice just to say "I'm not covering the appendix" somewhere)
Overall though, very handy guide and I recommend it as a guide to your own understanding and interpretation.
(Couple of things: David Harvey recommends the Penguin edition, which is probably the best available, if you're planning on following along, and it's the one he quotes from with page numbers. However, the Penguin version comes with an appendix which is another chapter Marx wrote but didn't publish yet Harvey doesn't mention it at all. It's no big deal, but it would have been nice just to say "I'm not covering the appendix" somewhere)
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
i found this very helpful right up until a friend pointed out to me that harvey's work aren't so much companions to capital so much as riffs or tangents off capital, and once i had heard that, i found it difficult to find it much more than frustrating. certainly if you remove the lengthy quotations from das kapital, as well as harvey rendering the material relevant to his own interests, i.e. reaganomics, urban space, mondragon you would have excised about 70% of the book. i think if i ever re-read capital i will probably try to find a different companion
how would I have survived the past 7 months without Uncle David, I wonder
i found this very helpful right up until a friend pointed out to me that harvey's work aren't so much companions to capital so much as riffs or tangents off capital, and once i had heard that, i found it difficult to find it much more than frustrating. certainly if you remove the lengthy quotations from das kapital, as well as harvey rendering the material relevant to his own interests, i.e. reaganomics, urban space, mondragon you would have excised about 70% of the book. i think if i ever re-read capital i will probably try to find a different companion