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Ecology of Fear

Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster
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( 1,371 ratings, 146 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Ecology of Fear by Mike Davis explores how natural disasters shape the social and cultural landscape of Los Angeles. It delves into the city's recurrent struggles with wildfires, earthquakes, and other calamities, analysing the intersection of urban development and environmental risks. This book offers a compelling examination of how fear and catastrophe influence urban life and policies.
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Format: Paperback / softback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might enjoy this book if you're fascinated by how natural disasters and urban development intersect. The author delves into the dynamics of Los Angeles, uncovering the environmental and societal impacts of floods, fires, and earthquakes on the city's growth and identity.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

Earthquakes. Wildfires. Floods. Drought. Tornadoes. Snakes in the sea, mountain lions, and a plague of bees.

The classic book on LA as locus of ecological destruction--in culture and in reality

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Counterpointing Los Angeles’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, Mike 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 in an era of climate change and social change. With savagely entertaining wit and compassionate rage, this book conducts a devastating reconnaissance of our all-too-likely urban future.

With a new 2021 afterword taking stock of LA's 21st century.

Series: The Essential Mike Davis

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  • Ecology of Fear
    Counterpointing Los Angeles’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, Mike 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...
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  • Prisoners of the American Dream
    Prisoners of the American Dream is Mike Davis’s brilliant exegesis of a persistent and major analytical problem for Marxist historians and political economists: Why has the world’s most industrially advanced nation never spawned a mass party of the working class? This series of essays surveys the history of the American bourgeois democratic revolution from its Jacksonian beginnings to the rise...
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    Winner of the 2001 Carey McWilliams Award Is the capital of Latin America a small island at the mouth of the Hudson River? Will California soon hold the balance of power in Mexican national politics? Will Latinos reinvigorate the US labour movement? These are some of the provocative questions that Mike Davis explores in this fascinating account of the Latinization...
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Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Ecology of Fear by Mike Davis is praised for its bold political and environmental vision, eloquent writing, and extensive factual information. It is noted as an eccentric yet substantial contribution to its field.

Book Hero reading reviews

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781786636249

Publisher: Verso Books

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 15 February 2022

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Verso Books

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 31.0mm

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 390g

Pages: 496

About the Author

Mike Davis is the author of City of Quartz, Late Victorian Holocausts, Buda’s Wagon, and Planet of Slums. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the Lannan Literary Award.

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  • Set the Night on Fire
    Set the Night on Fire by Mike Davis and Jon Wiener provides a riveting and comprehensive chronicle of the political and social upheaval that defined Los Angeles during the 1960s. This groundbreaking work delves into the city's pivotal role as a catalyst for change, documenting the rise of significant movements and influential figures that shaped the era. Drawing from extensive...
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