Ap Human Geography Book Review

The Cambridge dictionary definition of geography is “the study of the systems and processes involved in the world 's weather, mountains, seas, lakes, etc. and of the ways in which countries and people organize life within an area”. The idea of capitalism focuses on the human side of geography due to capitalism affecting peoples lives and socially, how the world develops. Capitalism is “an economic, political, and social system in which property, business, and industry are privately owned, directed towards making the greatest possible profits for successful organizations and people”, as defined in the Cambridge dictionary. Despite some criticisms towards capitalism, it is seen as the most successful economic strategy for a country compared to

He first states that “capitalism led to corrupt policies, social affairs and moral sentiments”, the reasoning behind this is he believes that “capitalism has produced unemployment, disinvestment of destructions of ways of life”, this speaks of the geographical inequality. Throughout Harvey’s book, he brings in different scholars to back up his points, most notably, Marx and Engles book: “The manifesto of the Communist party”, 1948 as well ideas from Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a German philosopher. Harvey illustrates his negativity towards capitalism by describing it as “horror for the immense powers unleashed under free market capitalism”. Capitalism has led to the “creation of great cities, rapid urbanisation, bring the towns to rule over the country, reducing rural life to a sub alternative class”. This again, highlights the geography in capitalism as there is a clear unequal pattern within capitalism, in the sense of urban Vs rural and rich Vs poor. Hegel disagrees with capitalism by saying that “unchecked, unregulated - free market capitalism would end up depleting and ultimately destroying its own wealth- the labourer and the soil”, this brings in an environmental factor to capitalism where humans exploit raw materials in order to build onto their economic empire. Capitalism has created a profit searching world, where people forget the opportunity cost to the environment. It was the Spanish who infiltrated Cuba in search of a profit in coffee making, what they purposefully neglected was that tropical rainstorms after washed away the fertile soil only leaving bare rock, and infertile land (Engels, 1876). This shows that capitalism has effected nature for the worse, it is the ignorance of man who fails to be sustainable when in search of this