The Conversations on the Left project by Focaal opens its series with an interview with David Harvey, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Geography at the CUNY Graduate Center.

David Harvey’s works have had a profound impact on the direction of leftist social science over the past four decades. A few months before this interview, in May 2013, an impressive swarm of critical geographers, urbanists, sociologists, and anthropologists converged in New York City to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Harvey’s Social Justice and the City (1973), which has become a foundational work across the social sciences. In addition to his earlier major and influential works such as Limits to Capital (1982) and The Condition of Postmodernity (1989), Harvey remains a prolific writer. In the past three years alone he has published three important books: Rebel Cities (2012), A Companion to Marx’s Capital Volume II (2013), and Seventeen Contradictions (2014). These recent works have also found a wide readership among non-academic audiences and circulate widely among activists and organizers on globally.

This interview is from December 2013, conducted in David Harvey’s office at the CUNY Graduate Center. In this second part of the interview, I ask him about his assessment of the state of political movements and political consciousness today. Part 3 (forthcoming) continues this discussion of contemporary social movements and uprisings.

Cite as: Harvey, David, and Zoltán Glück. “Focaal Interview with David Harvey part 2.” Vimeo video, 9:42. Filmed 12 December 2013. Posted by Berghahn Books, October 2014. https://vimeo.com/106334163.