ISBN: 1786636255 9781786636256

Category: Social Science / Sociology / Urban

Page count: 496

<b>A witty and engrossing look at Los Angeles' urban ecology and the city's place in America's cultural fantasies</b><br><br>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 <i>City of Quartz</i>, 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 catastrophe continues to accumulate.<br><br>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.<br> <br>Drawing upon a vast array of sources, <i>Ecology of Fear</i> meticulously captures the nation's violent malaise and desperate social unease at the millennial end of "the American century."<br> <br>With savagely entertaining wit and compassionate rage, this book conducts a devastating reconnaissance of our all-too-likely urban future.