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Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster
Vintage
September 1999
On Sale: September 7, 1999
496 pages ISBN: 0375706070 EAN: 9780375706073 Paperback
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Non-Fiction
"Graced with a bold political and environmental vision, much
splendid phrasemaking and a multitude of facts. . . . A
truly eccentric contribution."--The New York Times Book Review Earthquakes. Wildfires. Floods. Drought. Tornadoes. Snakes
in the sea, mountain lions, and a plague of bees. In this
controversial tour de force of scholarship, unsparing
vision, and inspired writing, Mike Davis, the author of City
of Quartz, revisits Los Angeles as a Book of the Apocalypse
theme park. By brilliantly juxtaposing L.A.'s fragile
natural ecology with its disastrous environmental and social
history, he compellingly shows a city deliberately put in
harm's way by land developers, builders, and politicians,
even as the incalculable toll of inevitable future
catas-trophe continues to accumulate. Counterpointing L.A.'s central role in America's fantasy
life--the city has been destroyed no less than 138 times in
novels and films since 1909--with its wanton denial of its
own real history, Davis creates a revelatory kaleidoscope of
American fact, imagery, and sensibility. Drawing upon a
vast array of sources, Ecology of Fear meticulously captures
the nation's violent malaise and desperate social unease at
the millennial end of "the American century." With savagely
entertaining wit and compassionate rage, this book conducts
a devastating reconnaissance of our all-too-likely urban future. "Dizzying. . . . In Mr. Davis's account, the world ends in
fire, and the next time is now."--The New York Times
No awards found for this book.
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