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Mike Davis
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City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (The Haymarket Series) by Mike Davis (1998-06-04) Mass Market Paperback – January 1, 1856

by Mike Davis (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 10 ratings
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The hidden story of L.A. Mike Davis shows us where the city's money comes from and who controls it while also exposing the brutal ongoing struggle between L.A.'s haves and have-nots.
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  1. Publisher
    Pimlico
  2. Publication date
    January 1, 1856
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01FIXTJ8C
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pimlico (January 1, 1856)
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 10 ratings

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Mike Davis

Mike Davis

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

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
10 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Suzanne DeRusha
5.0 out of 5 stars Really great descriptions of the history of Los Angeles - the ...
Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2018
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Really great descriptions of the history of Los Angeles - the good, the bad and the ugly. An important book for all Los Angeles residents who want to know how we got where we are now.
2 people found this helpful
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Eggleston
5.0 out of 5 stars Machine Politics with no Heart
Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2017
In California, the system works like this: The Democratic Party Machine in the city and the state is funded by the public employees unions, who in turn get gold-plated pensions and soaring salaries. The building on the books's cover is one of the jail facilities in LA. As I write this in 2017, the LA County Sheriff is sentenced to three years in jail for allowing Sheriffs in the County Jail to beat prisoners at will, and then attempted to derail an FBI investigation into same. No one in the city or state government cared about the abuses, that's how sour the California dream has become.

One County Supervisor, Mike Antonovich, turned his dogs loose on the poorest of the poor living in the desert north of LA, and forced them to dismantle their own substandard homes and hit the road, this during the last economic meltdown. That's what happens when you're poor and have no big organization looking out for you in California. Poor older people eat cat food in this state; and there are thousands of homeless tents on the streets of LA. One city councilwoman thought it was terrible that some of the homeless were living in motorhomes; apparently she thought they should hit the road too; LA is not a welcoming town for those with no money. But if you have the right connections and can rent an old warehouse and buy hydroponic gear, you can grow marijuana in LA and nobody will bother you.

I'm sorry that no one else has had the time to review this great book, which first came out in 1989, three years before the Rodney King riots that the book almost predicted would take place, given the shoddy governance of the city. Mr Davis paints a picture of a very large city without intellectuals, or if they do come, lured by the movie biz, they usually leave soon after. The movie industry is a closed society, uninterested in the city except as a set. So the town falls to special interests, whether developers, nimbys or political hacks. Los Angeles sole contribution to state government was Arnold Schwarzenegger, and has become a hispanic majority city in the last 40 years, a point emphasized by the other major book about LA, "Los Angeles: Capital of the Third World" by David Rieff, a much less interesting book in my opinion.

This book is a thoroughly researched, wide ranging and hard hitting look at a tough immigrant town, a gigantic collage of ethnicities simmering in the hot sun. Many of the issues it looked at in an earlier time still fester. I take it that there are updated editions here. My respects to it's author.
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Top reviews from other countries

dewi jones
5.0 out of 5 stars Revelatory
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 6, 2020
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A revelatory book about Los Angeles and USA in general Very thought provoking
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Jason Ross
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 11, 2015
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As expected
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Shantiq
3.0 out of 5 stars This here is really an academic opus
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 3, 2018
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This here is really an academic opus [replete with references]; written in a sometimes semi-clumsy style which is 20% hipness or thereabouts hipness 60% Social Science department x% Cultural Studies style ... and really for the layman or the strictly non-Angelino quite a lot to handle ... but still we can all get a foot on the first few rungs of the ladder here ... the tale is quite fascinating ... but it is not a general interest read ... this is serious commitment :]
PS also would love an up-to-date version 1990 is when it stops... the story needs a ten-year review every ten years
whoops there was one in 2006 https://www.amazon.co.uk/NEW-City-Quartz-Excavating-Angeles/dp/1844675688/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1514993130&sr=8-4&keywords=Mike+Davis
☆☆☆ for the time being ... might come back and add one when completed
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