City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, New Edition
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 West—a 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.
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Additional Product Information
- ISBN: 9781844675685
- Manufacturer:N/A
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| From: Amazon Posted: Feb 10, 2008 Type: User Review |
One of the most boring books I've ever read
I caught Mike Davis on an HBO Documentary about gangs in Southern California, and this book was referenced many times. As a resident of Southern California, I was anxious to learn more about the new megalopolis that I now called home.
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 1.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Dec 22, 2007 Type: User Review |
Not Really About L.A.......
As an avid fan of Los Angeles/Southland history, and having lived there from the early 1960s through the late 1980s, I was eager to get my hands on this book. Sadly, it isn't truly about Los Angeles. The author uses the city as a soapbox to...
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1.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Sep 19, 2007 Type: User Review |
city of quartz , new edition
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 5.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: May 22, 2007 Type: User Review |
Should be shelved in Poli-Sci or Opinion but not History
I got this book thinking it was about the social history and architecture of Los Angeles.
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 2.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Mar 26, 2007 Type: User Review |
a great piece of history
I knew very little about L.A. This book is actually a history book. I just loved it and it answered many questions I had.
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5.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Feb 26, 2007 Type: User Review |
Radical history of Los Angeles
Davis is well-known in radical circles as a popular writer on various issues relating to labor movements and the like. This is essentially a history of the city of Los Angeles and its surroundings from a radical perspective. It's quite well-done...
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 4.00/5 |
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