City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, New Edition
By:
Mike Davis
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Average Customer Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Description:
A fully updated edition of Mike Davis's visionary work.
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.
Publisher: Verso
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Still Too Valid. Davis Milestone for Urban Studies - An unfortunate classic for urban studies. It might be all too valid... Actually it might be gaining validity as time progresses...
Customer Review: 1 out of 5
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.
I anxiously began reading the book, but quickly became disinterested by Mike Davis's relentlessly dry and academic approach in telling the story of Los Angeles. There would be absolutely no mistaking the fact that Mike Davis is an academic, and not a story teller.
The reader is subjected to a million tiny facts about everything that ever happened throughout the history of the city, and by concentrating on every piece of bark on every tree the reader is denied the view of the forrest. It literally felt like this was a book I had to read for some kind of class or homework assignment, and I had to will myself to finish it. I am a voracious reader, but I found this book to be virtually unreadable.
High marks to Mike Davis for the research that must have gone into this book, but low marks for keeping the reader engaged about the material.
Customer Review: 1 out of 5
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 espouse his political view of the world. Any city would do, to be sure. If you want to read a continuous stream of how the "haves" abuse the "have nots", how "power" is always bad and how the ultimate goal of every "majority" is to subjugate every "minority", then have a good read. Don't expect any factual basis or thoughtful analysis, however. This book is just "That's the way it is, thank you very much, and the place has gone to hell."
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
city of quartz , new edition -
City of Quartz, the original version, is an excellent book on the history of Los Angeles until 1989, well readable, informative and incisive, a must-read even if some people take offense at views which are neither mainstream nor conservative.
When you finish the book you are very curious as to how that author would write about the years since 1989.
That book still needs to be written.
But in an extensive foreword to this new edition many aspects of the most recent history of the most fascinating metropolis on the planet are touched, the Watts riots and whatnot; obviously there is much more and whoever follows what Davis writes in journals about Katrina-torn New Orleans and other hot topics, google his books !, can't wait until a new, extensively updated "City of Quartz" will be out.
Customer Review: 2 out of 5
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.
Although City Of Quartz does touch upon various events in LA history, it does so only to use those events as a springboard for the author's political writings. Reading it, I got the impression that ANY American city would have brought forth the same opinions.
To sum up: "Wealthy people, Corporations, the Police, and Conservatives are BAD GUYS and are ALWAYS in the wrong. Poor people, Unions, Criminals and Liberals are GOOD GUYS and are ALWAYS in the right. And don't you people realize that the cost of one stealth bomber could pay for 10000 public housing units!?"
The author is certainly entitled to his opinions, but with such a cut-and-dried world view the book quickly becomes boringly predictable. Page after page of "The rich are oppressing the poor, the Whites are oppressing Minorities, the Police are oppressing criminals..." stated as facts - no need for debate - no discussion as to WHY the author feels this way - just a long laundry list of political grievences, and in the end - very little about L.A. history.
If you're interested in Mr. Davis's opinions, this book might be worth a read. But if you're looking for a history book about Los Angeles, look elsewhere.
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