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    The Story of Capital

    What Everyone Should Know About How Capital Works

    Author David Harvey
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    Hardcover
    $34.95 US
    Verso Books | Verso
    On sale Feb 24, 2026 | 400 Pages | 9781836742111
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    The world's leading Marxist geographer and economist guides general readers through major concepts in capitalism and Marx's masterwork

    For decades, David Harvey has been teaching Marx's work, particularly Capital, to great acclaim. He has analysed chapter by chapter - sometimes line-by-line - Marx's three volumes and the Grundrisse. This new book opens up the mental universe of that work for a general reader.

    In The Story of Capital, Harvey takes a synoptic approach to the conceptual architecture as a whole and guides us through the key moments, from labour and technology to the state and geopolitics, via the profit rate, social reproduction, the relationship to nature, fictitious capital and the return of the rentiers. In doing so, Harvey has produced a work which will become a key reference for all those trying to grasp the nature of contemporary capitalism.
    INTRODUCTION
    CHAPTER 1. PROLOGUE: A MENTAL MAP OF CAPITAL’S DOMAIN
    CHAPTER 2. THE CIRCULATION OF LABOR CAPACITY AND THE ORIGIN OF PROFIT
    CHAPTER 3. TECHNOLOGICAL DYNAMISM AND THE PRODUCTIVITY OF LABOUR
    CHAPTER 4. MARX IN MANCHESTER
    CHAPTER 5. THE FALLING RATE AND RISING MASS OF PROFIT
    CHAPTER 6. THE EQUALIZATION OF THE PROFIT RATE
    CHAPTER 7. MASSES IN MOTION
    CHAPTER 8. THE PRODUCTION OF SPACE, TIME AND PLACE
    CHAPTER 9. SOCIAL REPRODUCTION AND THE CIRCULATION OF LABOR POWER
    CHAPTER 10. EXTRACTIVISM AND THE METABOLIC RELATION TO NATURE
    CHAPTER 11. FIXED CAPITAL AND THE CONSUMPTION FUND
    CHAPTER 12. THE CIRCULATION OF INTEREST-BEARING CAPITAL
    CHAPTER 13. THE TROUBLESOME CASE OF FICTITIOUS CAPITAL
    CHAPTER 14: ACCUMULATION BY DISPOSSESSION
    CHAPTER 15. THE RETURN OF THE RENTIER
    CHAPTER 16: THE STATE-FINANCE NEXUS
    CHAPTER 17. THE GEOPOLITICS OF CAPITAL
    APPENDIX: On Sraffa's Tail
    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 http://davidharvey.org
    David Harvey View titles by David Harvey
    "David Harvey unites the impossible: a broad global theoretical approach to capitalism with detailed economic analyses. As every good dialectician, he knows how to recognize a general tendency in what appears as marginal accidents of economic daily life. His knowledge goes well beyond the generalities of commodity fetishism and capitalist exploitation of nature. Although often critical of Marx, he uses Marx to explain problems we are experiencing today, from 2008 meltdown to the return of rents and the implications of Trump’s playing with tariffs. His book is for everyone who wants to really understand the mess we are in, which means – it is for everyone."
    —Slavoj Žižek

    "This terrific volume brings together several decades of Harvey’s original investigations of Marx’s work, and deploys them to illuminate many of our contemporary economic and social problems. One of his special talents is to analyze complex arguments in precise detail using clear and accessible language. A remarkable achievement."
    —Michael Hardt, author of The Subversive Seventies

    "Harvey’s ability to entangle the dense work and make it legible is unparalleled, and I’m looking forward to this new book about Marx’s influential economic text, and what Harvey has to teach about its lessons and shortcomings for our contemporary economics and society."
    —James Folta, Lit Hub, Most Anticipated Books of 2026

    About

    The world's leading Marxist geographer and economist guides general readers through major concepts in capitalism and Marx's masterwork

    For decades, David Harvey has been teaching Marx's work, particularly Capital, to great acclaim. He has analysed chapter by chapter - sometimes line-by-line - Marx's three volumes and the Grundrisse. This new book opens up the mental universe of that work for a general reader.

    In The Story of Capital, Harvey takes a synoptic approach to the conceptual architecture as a whole and guides us through the key moments, from labour and technology to the state and geopolitics, via the profit rate, social reproduction, the relationship to nature, fictitious capital and the return of the rentiers. In doing so, Harvey has produced a work which will become a key reference for all those trying to grasp the nature of contemporary capitalism.

    Table of Contents

    INTRODUCTION
    CHAPTER 1. PROLOGUE: A MENTAL MAP OF CAPITAL’S DOMAIN
    CHAPTER 2. THE CIRCULATION OF LABOR CAPACITY AND THE ORIGIN OF PROFIT
    CHAPTER 3. TECHNOLOGICAL DYNAMISM AND THE PRODUCTIVITY OF LABOUR
    CHAPTER 4. MARX IN MANCHESTER
    CHAPTER 5. THE FALLING RATE AND RISING MASS OF PROFIT
    CHAPTER 6. THE EQUALIZATION OF THE PROFIT RATE
    CHAPTER 7. MASSES IN MOTION
    CHAPTER 8. THE PRODUCTION OF SPACE, TIME AND PLACE
    CHAPTER 9. SOCIAL REPRODUCTION AND THE CIRCULATION OF LABOR POWER
    CHAPTER 10. EXTRACTIVISM AND THE METABOLIC RELATION TO NATURE
    CHAPTER 11. FIXED CAPITAL AND THE CONSUMPTION FUND
    CHAPTER 12. THE CIRCULATION OF INTEREST-BEARING CAPITAL
    CHAPTER 13. THE TROUBLESOME CASE OF FICTITIOUS CAPITAL
    CHAPTER 14: ACCUMULATION BY DISPOSSESSION
    CHAPTER 15. THE RETURN OF THE RENTIER
    CHAPTER 16: THE STATE-FINANCE NEXUS
    CHAPTER 17. THE GEOPOLITICS OF CAPITAL
    APPENDIX: On Sraffa's Tail

    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 http://davidharvey.org
    David Harvey View titles by David Harvey

    Praise

    "David Harvey unites the impossible: a broad global theoretical approach to capitalism with detailed economic analyses. As every good dialectician, he knows how to recognize a general tendency in what appears as marginal accidents of economic daily life. His knowledge goes well beyond the generalities of commodity fetishism and capitalist exploitation of nature. Although often critical of Marx, he uses Marx to explain problems we are experiencing today, from 2008 meltdown to the return of rents and the implications of Trump’s playing with tariffs. His book is for everyone who wants to really understand the mess we are in, which means – it is for everyone."
    —Slavoj Žižek

    "This terrific volume brings together several decades of Harvey’s original investigations of Marx’s work, and deploys them to illuminate many of our contemporary economic and social problems. One of his special talents is to analyze complex arguments in precise detail using clear and accessible language. A remarkable achievement."
    —Michael Hardt, author of The Subversive Seventies

    "Harvey’s ability to entangle the dense work and make it legible is unparalleled, and I’m looking forward to this new book about Marx’s influential economic text, and what Harvey has to teach about its lessons and shortcomings for our contemporary economics and society."
    —James Folta, Lit Hub, Most Anticipated Books of 2026

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