David Harvey (1935–)

This chapter surveys the thinking of David Harvey, one of the world’s most influential living Marxist scholars. During his long career, Harvey has published a large number of formative works. They both apply and extend the thinking of the later Marx, with little or no reference to the voluminous and influential writings of Marxists living during and after Marx’s own times. After describing the “classical” cast of Harvey’s political economy, the chapter groups his intellectual contributions in three ways. First, there are his contributions to Marxist geography, which registered most powerfully in his chosen academic discipline, Geography. Second, there are his contributions as a geographically minded Marxist, which registered most powerfully across the social sciences and humanities where a geographical sensibility was often lacking among 20th-century Marxists. Third, there are his more recent (post-2000) contribution as a Marxist public intellectual seeking to exert intellectual influence beyond the academy. The chapter concludes with some reflections about the limitations of Harvey’s brand of Marxism.