An essential introduction to the field of historical geography, which offers a radical new way of understanding global capitalism. Fiscal crises have cascaded across much of the developing world with devastating results, from Mexico to Indonesia, Russia and Argentina. The extreme volatility in contemporary political economic fortunes seems to mock our best efforts to understand the forces that drive development in the world economy. In this groundbreaking book, David Harvey shows how the disciplines of historical geography yield decisive new insights into the workings of global capitalism, and introduces the concept of uneven geographical development as a revelatory perspective on the forces which create economic success or failure.