From an epilogue to this NY Times op-ed .
Over the weekend, the family and friends of the historian Mike Davis announced that he had decided to stop treatment for cancer and was on palliative care. No scholar or writer has had a clearer understanding of California.
Davis has been a hero of mine ever since I read his essay “The Case for Letting Malibu Burn” in college. There are so many moments in my life when I see California through his work — when I walk past an inhospitable and fortresslike building in Los Angeles, which I now know has been designed to deter the poor from congregating outside; when I see a dense patch of brush that I know will one day catch fire; or when I see the low-slung stretches of single-family homes in the San Fernando Valley. He saw the state as a place of corruption, inequality and runaway capitalist greed, but he also saw its immense beauty, the possibilities of solidarity between all its peoples and the dignity of people who were doing their best to survive. The best writers burrow themselves in the back of your eyeballs and color everything you see. Davis is that for me — my California is the California he excavated through his reporting, his scholarship, his activism and his unflappable moral integrity.
Here is just a small sampling of his work:
“ The Case for Letting Malibu Burn ,” republished at Longreads.
“ Fortress L.A. ,” which appears in his landmark book “City of Quartz,” published by Verso Books.
Him and Graeber in the space of a couple of years :sadness:
you’d think as a lifelong LA resident with an interest in the city’s history, and a communist, that I’d have read at least something he’s written. Probably oughta start…
His books are 40% off on Verso right now. (I think everything is.) Here’s their “Mike Davis Bookshelf.” Ecology of Fear and City of Quartz look like good places to start for Los Angeles history.
He also writes the first half of this book, the section that talks about the history of racist vigilante groups in the West. https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1086-no-one-is-illegal-updated-edition
I have like three of his books that for some reason I’ve never got around to reading. I did read Buda’s Wagon about the history of the car bomb which was fire. Kevin Starr is recognized as the official expert on California but we know who the real MVP is.
