City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles

by Mike Davis, Robert Morrow (Photographer)

Overview

The hidden story of L.A. Mike davis shows us where the city's money comes form and who controls it while also exposing the brutal ongoing struggle between L.A.'s haves and have-nots.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679738060
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/28/1992
Edition description:	1st Vintage Books Edition
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	5.17(w) x 7.97(h) x 0.99(d)

About the Author

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.

What People are Saying About This

Jonathan Kozol

"An extraordinary book - tumultuous and brilliant."

William Gibson

"A visionary rant about a secret meeting of Los Angeles...absolutely fascinating. It's more cyberpunk than any work of fiction could ever be."

Editorial Reviews

Eschewing the character study that comprises most Los Angeles history, Davis concentrates on the ongoing and ignored ethnic and class struggles, formerly manifested by booster (pro-growth) exploitation, now replaced by exclusionary (no-growth) neighborhood incorporation, and by police control of Afro-American and Latino neighborhoods. His analysis of recent Los Angeles history is often chilling and--sad to say--more true than false. Small inaccuracies sometimes afflict the narrative, and the breathlessness of Davis's writing will probably confuse readers who are unfamilar with the region. But these criticisms quibble with an otherwise important and necessary work. Recommended.-- Tim Zindel, Hastings Coll . of the Law, San Francisco

Library Journal

Davis’ work is the cruel and perpetual folly of the ruling elites.”
—New York Times

“As central to the L.A. canon as anything that Carey McWilliams wrote in the forties or Joan Didion wrote in the seventies.”
—Dana Goodyear, New Yorker

“Los Angeles faces a perilous millennium whose emerging contours will surely have no more brilliant prophet or historian than Davis.”
—Alexander Cockburn

“A history as fascinating as it is instructive.”
—Peter Ackroyd, The Times

“At once intensely intellectual and visceral.”
—Contemporary Sociology

“Absolutely fascinating.”
—William Gibson

“Even as he offers vivid street-smart reportage (and frequently breathtaking prose), Davis projects a distinctive historical vision.”
—Adam Shatz, Lingua Franca

“Few books shed as much light on their subjects as this opinionated and original excavation of Los Angeles from the mythical debris of its past and future.”
—San Francisco Examiner

“Angelenos, now is the time to lean into Mike Davis’s apocalyptic, passionate, radical rants on the sprawling, gorgeous mess that is Los Angeles.”
—Stephanie Danler, author of Stray and Sweetbitter

“City of Quartz deserves to be emancipated from its parochial legacy … [It is] a working theory of global cities writ large, with as much to teach us about multiculturalism as it does racial apartheid in Los Angeles.”
—David Helps, Los Angeles Review of Books

“A wildly original analysis of the city on the threshold of the new millennium, the book synthesized knowledge about Los Angeles’s history, politics, culture, architecture, policing, immigration, and more, painting a dark picture that embodied a kind of American urban dystopia on steroids after the nightmare of Reaganism and the ‘developers’ millennium.’”
—Micah Uetricht, The Nation

“Dazzling.”
—Counterfire

From the Publisher

Few books shed as much light on their subjects as this opinionated and original excavation of Los Angeles from the mythical debris of its past and future.

San Francisco Examiner

Absolutely fascinating.

William Gibson

A history as fascinating as it is instructive.

Peter Ackroyd - The Times

A history as fascinating as it is instructive.

The Times - Peter Ackroyd