Product Description

This book engages with the politics of social and environmental justice, and seeks new ways to think about the future of urbanization in the twenty-first century. It establishes foundational concepts for understanding how space, time, place and nature - the material frames of daily life - are constituted and represented through social practices, not as separate elements but in relation to each other. It describes how geographical differences are produced, and shows how they then become fundamental to the exploration of political, economic and ecological alternatives to contemporary life.

The book is divided into four parts. Part I describes the problematic nature of action and analysis at different scales of time and space, and introduces the reader to the modes of dialectical thinking and discourse which are used throughout the remainder of the work. Part II examines how "nature" and "environment" have been understood and valued in relation to processes of social change and seeks, from this basis, to make sense of contemporary environmental issues.

Part III, is a wide-ranging discussion of history, geography and culture, explores the meaning of the social "production" of space and time, and clarifies problems related to "otherness" and "difference". The final part of the book deploys the foundational arguments the author has established to consider contemporary problems of social justice that have resulted from recent changes in geographical divisions of labor, in the environment, and in the pace and quality of urbanization.

Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference speaks to a wide readership of students of social, cultural and spatial theory and of the dynamics of contemporary life. It is a convincing demonstration that it is both possible and necessary to value difference and to seek a just social order.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #595410 in Books
• Published on: 1997-01-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Review
 

Review
"As always with Harvey's work, this is a book rich in ideas and dense in argument... It should be widely read and argued over by all of us in the urban and environmental field." –P. Healey, Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design

"This surely is a most important book and one to turn to again and again as David Harvey's work never fails to be challenging." –Linda McDowell, University of Cambridge

"... Harvey's writing remains enviably readable and maintains a compelling sense of urgency and purpose." –Steve Hinchliffe, Open University

"... this book deserves a very wide readership, even among those who are more practically or even policy oriented. It is a rich and creative text, which confronts some of the biggest social and political questions we face today." –Allan Cochrane, The Open University

"As a contribution to the development of geographical scholarship in the historical materialist tradition, this is a landmark volume..." –David M. Smith, Queen Mary and Westfield College

"Clearly, this book is a tour de force ... Its breadth of reference makes almost every page interesting and provocative." –Alan M. Hay, The Geographical Journal

From the Back Cover
This book engages with the politics of social and environmental justice, and seeks new ways to think about the future of urbanization in the twenty-first century. It establishes foundational concepts for understanding how space, time, place and nature - the material frames of daily life - are constituted and represented through social practices, not as separate elements but in relation to each other. It describes how geographical differences are produced, and shows how they then become fundamental to the exploration of political, economic and ecological alternatives to contemporary life.

The book is divided into four parts. Part I describes the problematic nature of action and analysis at different scales of time and space, and introduces the reader to the modes of dialectical thinking and discourse which are used throughout the remainder of the work. Part II examines how "nature" and "environment" have been understood and valued in relation to processes of social change and seeks, from this basis, to make sense of contemporary environmental issues.

Part III, is a wide-ranging discussion of history, geography and culture, explores the meaning of the social "production" of space and time, and clarifies problems related to "otherness" and "difference". The final part of the book deploys the foundational arguments the author has established to consider contemporary problems of social justice that have resulted from recent changes in geographical divisions of labor, in the environment, and in the pace and quality of urbanization.

Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference speaks to a wide readership of students of social, cultural and spatial theory and of the dynamics of contemporary life. It is a convincing demonstration that it is both possible and necessary to value difference and to seek a just social order.

Customer Reviews

ambitious but uneven
This is a big, sprawling book; I put off buying it for years b/c of the price but could never get very far in a library copy b/c it seemed like such an undertaking. It's not a book one could assign in a typical book-a-week grad school course. As academic reviewers have pointed out, Harvey is pulling together LOTS of different strands and theorists here--Leibniz, Haraway, Bourdieu, Whitehead, & many others. If you've read a lot of these folks before, Harvey has a lot to say, but if you haven't, this should definitely not be your introduction to Harvey's thought (I'd recommend Condition of Postmodernity, or maybe The New Imperialism). Some sections are fantastic - part I ch. 2 on Dialectics for example is a fantastically clear, lucid explanation of a dialectical approach. But it just keeps going, with a lot of material that might have been better published as separate critical articles on particular theorists, or relegated to footnotes, so that the overall argument gets diluted. All that said, it's a book that anyone working on space and place in the social sciences should read eventually, and one that offers lots of ideas for thinking about how to integrate or form alliances between various types of identity and locally-grounded politics on one hand, and a larger critique of neoliberal capitalism on the other. But I think Harvey's more recent books -- shorter, tighter and more topically focused -- while still theoretically and analytically brilliant -- probably reflect a welcome response to critics of this book (and if you're serious about the book, it's well worth reading the special issue of Antipode in 1998 devoted to it -- it's a work of such complexity that most readers will probably want some other opinions and a bit of guidance in making sense of it all).

An Eye-opener
This book is a spectacular down-to-earth attempt to trasnscend positivism as well as Marxism. The very logic of the erudite author's argument alights in a blind alley, where the Heideggerian ambivalence remains the only saviour. This daring milestone in the history of thought would always be an inspiring read.

Excellent Review of the Concept of Justice in Postmodernism
Harvey presents an excellent review of the concept of justice (both social and environmental) and its survival in postmodern context. Also a nice treatment of dialectical reasoning.