Spaces of hope

David Harvey, Edinburgh University Press, 293 pages, paperback, £14.95

The author, professor of geography at the John Hopkins University in Baltimore, begins by discussing the devastating nature of globalisation which deprives three quarters of the world's population of any control over their destiny. He stresses geographical, as well as political and economic, differences, and shows how capitalism can often contain class struggle by a geographic divide and rule. Analysing the new geography of production he finds a wealth of relevant insight in Marx's writings. He also explores the existing urban environment using the city of Baltimore as an illustration.

He argues that we need to become architects of a quite different working environment. He examines the history of utopianism and outlines a new kind of utopian thought which he calls "dialectical utopianism". Lastly he sketches a very personal vision of an alternative society.

There is a great deal of concentrated argument in this book, which is quite hard work to read but well worth it for the novel insights it contains and the frankness with which it confronts the problem of building a movement of opposition to globalisation.