{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.034280559314388816, 'fraction_numerical': 0.012178619756427604, 'mean_word_length': 5.410404624277457, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Review: Theory Matters: Derek Gregory and Noel Castree, eds, David Harvey: A Critical Reader. Oxford: Blackwell: 2006, 324 pp., ISBN 0631235108, US$33.95

This remarkable volume, composed of 14 original essays by an excellent team of contributors (including a piece on the concept of space by Harvey himself), is a welldeserved homage to one of the most erudite, versatile and challenging social scientists of his generation. The book works at once as an introduction to Harvey’s work and intellectual trajectory, a systematic discussion of the vast array of theoretical, empirical and ethical-political themes he has tackled and a synthesis of the main critiques that can be addressed to his oeuvre. Harvey’s attempt to develop a geographically enlightened ‘Marxian meta-theory’ or ‘historical-geographical materialism’ is a pervasive issue, although the different essays focus on how, and with what implications, this approach is put to use in his incursions into diverse topics: (1) the analysis of capitalism, considered at both the theoretical and substantive levels, i.e. in terms of its ‘invariant elements and relations’ (Marx) and its concrete reproductive/transformative trends in the contemporary world (with their massive implications for the social organization and experience of time and space); (2) the ontological andmethodological principles of dialectics, which amount to a relational, processual and conflictualWeltanschauung; (3) the political-economic configurations, as well as symbolic and imaginary representations, of urban landscapes; and (4) the critical tasks of social theory, a theme that invokes not only an investigation of Harvey’s role as a public intellectual, but also the debates concerning the current importance of class as a locus of domination and a political basis for social justice movements, in face of the momentum gained by forms of anti-oppressive discourse and activism based on distinct sources of social identity/difference. Gregory’s opening essay gives us a preview of the quality (in both the descriptive and evaluative senses) of the book in toto by exploring the ‘routes’ of Harvey’s path and setting up the tone of sympathetic critique that runs throughout the