Cultural Detritus, Reviews, and Commentary
Link to an interview of David Harvey conducted by Vincent Emanuele:
“Rebel Cities, Urban Resistance and Capitalism: A Conversation with David Harvey”
Harvey is best in these sort of interview settings. It is great that the conversation touches on questions of culture and symbols — though there is not much depth here beyond simply raising those issues. It is worth noting that Pierre Bourdieu and others have offered substantial analytic tools to bolster theory in that area.
Link to an interview of David Harvey by Bjarke Skærlund Risager:
David Harvey – Seventeen Contradictions and The End of Capitalism (Profile Books, 2014)
Admittedly, I did not read all of this book. I did read enough to have my fill though. David Harvey has achieved that status of academic respect that allows him to release books in which he pontificates about his opinions without regard for much other scholarship, and people nonetheless print those books and read them. He adopts an air of aristocratic self-importance such that he can discuss other scholars and simply say he does like them. Support? Research? Logical critique? None of those. Just the wave of his withered, regal hand — he doesn’t like those other theories. That is the problem with Harvey. He’s dispensing his own theories by monologue, not testing them. The premise of this book is to be an accessible, high level discussion of the inherent contradictions of capital (not capitalism). Time and again, Harvey reveals his rigid, old-fogey commitment to old theory and his readiness to dismiss all ideas outside his conceptions of orthodox marxism and class reductionism. Where he’s best is in detailed discussions of the particulars of contemporary urban real estate and associated geography. But while he has updated the descriptions to fit the modern context, his illustrations add nothing to what has been written a century ago (Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise in Recent Times: The Case of America). Pass.
Link to an interview of David Harvey by Steffen Böhm:
“Ponzi Scheme Capitalism: An Interview with David Harvey”
Choice quote: “there’s nothing more unequal than the equal treatments of unequals.”