Abstract from the Concrete

Marxist geographer David Harvey opened his lecture with a fact: between 2011 and 2013 China consumed nearly 45 percent more cement than the United States had in the entire 20th century. In Abstract from the Concrete, he asks “why.” Spiraling outward—geographically and materially—Harvey travels from the building industry in China to the foreclosed housing market in the United States to the automobile industry in São Paulo and back again. The “why” emerges as a direct result of “anti-value,” of capital in crisis—intrinsic, he contends, to capital and capital cities today.

Featuring an interview with David Harvey by Mariano Gomez Luque and Daniel Ibañez

Abstract from the Concrete is the third title in the book series The Incidents, based on uncommon events at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Edited by Jennifer Sigler and Leah Whitman-Salkin.
Designed by Åbäke.

174 pages, softcover, $14.00
ISBN 978-3-95679-261-8

Co-published by Harvard University Graduate School of Design and Sternberg Press.