Rebel Cities - by David Harvey (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"David Harvey...has inspired a generation of radical intellectuals." --Naomi Klein

A "forensic and ferocious" manifesto on the city as a center for anti-capitalist resistance from an acclaimed theorist (The Guardian)

Long before Occupy, cities were the subject of much utopian thinking. They are the centers of capital accumulation as well as of revolutionary politics, where deeper currents of social and political change rise to the surface. Do the financiers and developers control access to urban resources or do the people? Who dictates the quality and organization of daily life?

Rebel Cities places the city at the heart of both capital and class struggles, looking at locations ranging from Johannesburg to Mumbai, from New York City to São Paulo. Drawing on the Paris Commune as well as Occupy Wall Street and the London Riots, Harvey asks how cities might be reorganized in more socially just and ecologically sane ways--and how they can become the focus for anti-capitalist resistance.

Review Quotes

"Whose streets? Our streets! In Rebel Cities David Harvey shows us how we might turn this slogan into a reality. That task--and this book--could hardly be more important." --Benjamin Kunkel, author of Indecision and a founding editor of N+1

"David Harvey provoked a revolution in his field and has inspired a generation of radical intellectuals." --Naomi Klein

"Challenging and timely." --Red Pepper

"Forensic and ferocious." --Owen Hatherley, Guardian

"Harvey's clarion demand [is] that it is 'we, ' not the developers, corporate planners, or political elites, who truly build the city, and only we who can seize back our right to its control." --Jonathan Moses, Open Democracy

"Intellectuals in the Occupy movement [will] appreciate Rebel Cities' descriptions of the historic and international parallel of urban struggles to reclaim public space and build culture, and be intrigued by Harvey's musings on how to grow a lively, resilient revolutionary anticapitalist movement." --Publishers Weekly

"A consistent intelligent voice of the left." --Edwin Heathcote, Financial Times

About the Author

David Harvey teaches at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and is the author of many books, including Social Justice and the City, The Condition of Postmodernity, The Limits to Capital, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Spaces of Global Capitalism, and A Companion to Marx's Capital. His website is davidharvey.org