City Of Quartz Pa

by Davis,Mike

• ISBN13: 9781844675685
• ISBN10: 1844675688
• Edition: 00
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-09-17
• Publisher: Random House (NY)

Summary

No metropolis has been more loved or more hated. To its official boosters, "Los Angeles brings it all together." To detractors, LA is a sunlit mortuary where "you can rot without feeling it." To Mike Davis, the author of this fiercely elegant and wide- ranging work of social history, Los Angeles is both utopia and dystopia, a place where the last Joshua trees are being plowed under to make room for model communities in the desert, where the rich have hired their own police to fend off street gangs, as well as armed Beirut militias. In City of Quartz , Davis reconstructs LA's shadow history and dissects its ethereal economy. He tells us who has the power and how they hold on to it. He gives us a city of Dickensian extremes, Pynchonesque conspiracies, and a desperation straight out of Nathaniel Westa city in which we may glimpse our own future mirrored with terrifying clarity.In this new edition, Davis provides a dazzling update on the city's current status.

Author Biography

Mike Davis is the author of several books including Planet of Slums, City of Quartz, Ecology of Fear, Late Victorian Holocausts, and Magical Urbanism. He was recently awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. He lives in Papa’aloa, Hawaii.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. v
Prologue: The View from Futures Past	p. 1
Sunshine or Noir?	p. 15
Power Lines	p. 99
Homegrown Revolution	p. 151
Fortress L.A.	p. 221
The Hammer and the Rock	p. 265
New Confessions	p. 323
Junkyard of Dreams	p. 373
Index	p. 441
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