I think it would hav. Top subscription boxes – right to your door, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, See all details for City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, © 1996-2020, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. This is a guy who knows what he is talking about. Be the first to ask a question about City of Quartz. Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2015 . I lived in LA from 1999 to 2010, longer than I've lived anywhere else -- but I took the city on its own terms and didn't really understand the full spectrum of interests that molded the city into what it was. City of Quartz is the closest that any of Nick Thorburn's post-Unicorns work has come to recreating that band's self-contained, fantastical sound world. Reading this book left me craving for more readings, I think I will go over the book again and read some of the books mentioned in the citations. Check out how he traces the rise of gangs in Los Angeles after the blue-collar, industrial jobs bailed out in the 1960s. A reliably lefty history of Los Angeles, City of Quartz was a fascinating read for a recent transplant from the east coast. The book opens with Davis visiting the ruins of the socialist community of Llano, organized in 1914 in what is now the Antelope Valley north of Los Angeles. Format Tips on citation … . . That said, City of Quartz is an indispensible tour of some of the darker corners of LA's famous story and an informative guide for those who have long looked for help in articulating precisely "why I really, really don't like Los Angeles." Davis maintains theoretical rigor while still presenting us with a readable, even journalistic account of the postmodern city. Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2019. L.A. Times He gives us a city of Dickensian extremes, Pynchonesque conspiracies, and a desperation straight out of Nathaniel Westa city in which we may glimpse our own future mirrored with terrifying clarity. On the contrary, it is, and has been since 1888, a commodity; something to be advertised and sold to the people of the United States like automobiles, cigarettes and mouth wash. Morrow Mayo”, National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee for General Nonfiction (1990), John Grisham's Recommended Thriller Reading List. That should not take away from the importance of City of Quartz. Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2014, I have lived 5 years in Los Angeles and I have to say reading this book has completely changed my perception of the city. Ci ting Morrow Mayo, a prominent . We’d love your help. However if I *were* thinking about such things I'd find it really rewarding to see all of them referenced. I knew next to nothing about Los Angeles until I dove into this treasure trove of information revealing the shaddy history and bleak future of the City of Quartz. Utterly fascinating, this book has influenced my own work and life so much. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of, Published That said, City of Quartz is an indispensible tour of some of the darker corners of LA's famous story and an informative guide for those who have long looked for help in articulating precisely "why I really, really don't like Los Angeles. Having never been there myself and knowing next to nothing about the area's history, I often felt myself overwhelmed, struggling to keep track of the various people and institutions that helped shape such a fractured, peculiarly American locale. “Here, one wants to create the Paris of the Far West. GoodReads - City of Quartz GoodReads community and editorial reviews can be helpful for getting a wide range of opinions on various aspects of the book. . I think it might be a little too Insider baseball for the uninitiated policy/socialist/public goods wonk- font size is also small, dense heavy text, but overall totally worth it if you’re interested in reading L.A. history and city planning. Rereading it now, nearly three decades later, I feel more convinced than ever that this prediction will be fulfilled. Some factual inconsistencies have come to light and Davis' other work (I've read it all) doesn't do much for me at all, but this book is amazing. It’s got an ominous synth line, a great guitar riff, and Mark Smith’s immortal lyrics: “L.L.L.A.A.A.L!L!L!A!A!A!” It’s the perfect soundtrack for reading this excellent book. He tells us who has the power and how they hold on to it. He’s mad and full of righteous indignation. Yet, in spite of the artists, writers and aspiring film stars, the sensibility of a real Montmartre, Soho, or even Greenwich Village, cannot be felt here. There's a lot to say about this book! Essential for anyone living in Los Angeles. Don't be put off by the author's undisguised, unvarnished, old-fashioned Marxist biases--Chairman Mao once observed, "we Marxists disdain to conceal our views," and Davis makes his clear--because he's spot on: this is a city built by scoundrels on a foundation of perfidy and despoliation. Reviewed in the United States on June 16, 2015. It's great to see that this old book still generates lively debate. Coming from another continent, names like Hollywood and Beverly Hills were familiar to me before arrival, but I knew nothing about Pasadena "Old Money" or South Central struggles. My favorite song about Los Angeles is “L.A.” by The Fall. When I first read this book, shortly after it appeared in 1990, I told everyone: this is that rare book that will still be read for insight and fun in a hundred years. -Most depressing view of LA that I've ever been witness to. He gives us a city of Dickensian extremes, Pynchonesque conspiracies, and a desperation straight out of Nathaniel Westa city in which we may glimpse our own future mirrored with terrifying clarity. (Another, minor, beef--the excellent photographs, and there are many, are not given very respectful reproduction.) I like to think that Davis and I see things the same way becuase of that. Not a novel observation, true; mainstream historians, scores of journalists of every persuasion, and, yes, Roman Polanski also point this out, but Davis's narrative has far splashier colors and a high entertainment quotient. City of Quartz is not necessarily a straightforward book for the non-American reader. With an updated preface, this book published in 1990 remains amazingly prescient. There is a quote at the beginning of Mike Davis's . Like, I literally started noticing things about the physical environment I had never noticed before. Very well researched and written. It is a somewhat left-leaning history of Los Angeles that was written in 1990, and is split into eight sections (counting the prologue): The story of socialist suburb Llano del Rio; the history of LA's dueling narratives as epitomizing either the American dream or a futuristic dystopia; history of LA's regional political and economic elites; the political rise of the Homeowners; the rise of police state architecture; the story of the LAPD's war on poor and b.
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