The book itself consists of five parts: Part I situates the emergence of capital within the broader development of political economy. Part II dissects the liberal and Marxist conceptions of capital. Part III explains why theorists of capital have been barking up the wrong tree, trying to equate accumulation with machines and production instead of capitalization and finance. Part IV lays the foundations for an alternative theory of accumulation based on power. Part V articulates our own theory of capital as power.

On the face of it, this layout may seem to separate neatly our ‘critique’ of existing theories in the first three parts of the book from the ‘gist’ of our story in the last two. But don’t be tempted to take a shortcut and jump over Rhodes. Substantively, there is no split in the book. The early parts of the book are crucial to the dialectical development of our argument, and unless you read them you won’t understand what follows.

The sections below highlight the key themes of each of these parts, listing some of the questions we ask and sketching the paths we follow as we research the answers. We write them less as a summary and more as an appetizer. Hopefully, they will lure you to read the whole book.