Very useful book to help demystify some of the stuff in Capital Volume 1. I disagree with quite a bit of what he says when he goes beyond Capital (particularly the focus on neoliberalism) but he connects it to Marx's work and seeing someone explicitly draw from it and developing it is useful. Most helpful early on - at parts it's limited to reiterating what Marx has said; understandable because the first couple of parts are definitely the toughest so it's not too big a deal. I do think he sometimes misses chances to argue a bit further. The main example is the labour theory of value - Marx didn't feel the need to justify it because it was commonly accepted at the time and Harvey only spends about a page (I think) doing so. Given that it's such an important part of what follows, it would have been nice to have a bit more time spent on it.

Overall though, very handy guide and I recommend it as a guide to your own understanding and interpretation.

(Couple of things: David Harvey recommends the Penguin edition, which is probably the best available, if you're planning on following along, and it's the one he quotes from with page numbers. However, the Penguin version comes with an appendix which is another chapter Marx wrote but didn't publish yet Harvey doesn't mention it at all. It's no big deal, but it would have been nice just to say "I'm not covering the appendix" somewhere) ( )

This is a careful and patient guide through Marx's Capital for any level of reader. Be warned, however, that the author wants you to read on Marx's terms, which means that there's very little commentary on how valid or invalid Marx's model of political economy happens to be. ( )

Invaluable during my reading of Capital, Volume I. I wouldn't have understood Capital, Volume I nearly as much without having this book by its side. I definitely recommend it for anyone that's thinking of tackling Marx's first volume of Capital. ( )

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