"Fiscal crises have cascaded across much of the developing world with devastating results, from Mexico to Indonesia to Russia to Argentina. The extreme volatility in contemporary economic fortunes seems to mock our best efforts to understand the forces that drive development in the world economy. David Harvey, the single most important geographer writing today and a leading social theorist of our age, offers a comprehensive critique of contemporary capitalism. In this fascinating book, he enlarges upon the key themes in his recent work: the development of neoliberalism, the spread of inequalities across the globe, and 'space' as a key theoretical concept"-- Publisher's description.