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4.09 AVERAGE
4.09 AVERAGE
dark
informative
medium-paced
informative
dark
informative
sad
challenging
dark
informative
slow-paced
Davis demonstrates how class and racial anxieties shape the narratives we are told of LA’s ecosystem (extreme weather, wildlife, and landscape), how clashing ideologies and the capitalist/fascist powers at be are often the actual culprits of the firestorm and ensuing destruction, both real and imagined. This is my first Mike Davis book, and count me among the Davis heads now, because I will be reading more from him as soon as I can.
In effect, we think ourselves gods upon the land but are still really just tourists.
Ecology of Fear is loose, if not disparate--an apt analogy of Los Angeles, if you will. It is wild-eyed, it is grim and it does boast a wicked sense of humor. How could it not? Davis embraces the myriad risks and curses which plague this fabled city. Surmising such collectively as fear, Davis concludes that it is only safety (of the Elites only, obviously), a corporate security, which remains a priority, hence surveillance capitalism thrives amongst a low-intensity race war. But the race war is only running cover for the dehumanization of the underclass.
My interest soared with the opening ecological sections and then waned in light of the threat analysis of tornados and killer bees. This is a stirring work, one which has aged rather well.
Ecology of Fear is loose, if not disparate--an apt analogy of Los Angeles, if you will. It is wild-eyed, it is grim and it does boast a wicked sense of humor. How could it not? Davis embraces the myriad risks and curses which plague this fabled city. Surmising such collectively as fear, Davis concludes that it is only safety (of the Elites only, obviously), a corporate security, which remains a priority, hence surveillance capitalism thrives amongst a low-intensity race war. But the race war is only running cover for the dehumanization of the underclass.
My interest soared with the opening ecological sections and then waned in light of the threat analysis of tornados and killer bees. This is a stirring work, one which has aged rather well.
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Violence, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Murder, Colonisation, Dysphoria, War, Classism, Deportation, Pandemic/Epidemic
A loosely related collection of essays built around the central theme that Los Angeles is a disaster-prone wasteland. It argues that LA is unusually vulnerable to disasters (a chapter each to earthquakes, fires, tornadoes, man-eating cougars, and rioting), that American culture is obsessed with this destruction, and that it is at least on some level deserved.
I generally like my books with more empathy than this one. That my preconceived notions of Los Angeles were basically confirmed doesn't really help.
It also feels dated; if it were written now, it would focus more on the coming twinned crises of climate change and drought. The concept of the urban degradation and racialized violence/rioting feels like an 80s nightmare reflected through the lens of rich white suburbanites compared to our present nightmare of skyrocketing income inequality, environmental injustice and police/ICE brutality. Davis seems sympathetic to poor, black, and brown people, but he never gives us their perspective, let alone their words. It would be a more interesting book if he did. I realize I'm complaining about what it *doesn't* do, but it's just weird to read in 2018; it feels like its written in the present tense about a city that doesn't exist anymore, and never quite did.
Two and a half stars.
I generally like my books with more empathy than this one. That my preconceived notions of Los Angeles were basically confirmed doesn't really help.
It also feels dated; if it were written now, it would focus more on the coming twinned crises of climate change and drought. The concept of the urban degradation and racialized violence/rioting feels like an 80s nightmare reflected through the lens of rich white suburbanites compared to our present nightmare of skyrocketing income inequality, environmental injustice and police/ICE brutality. Davis seems sympathetic to poor, black, and brown people, but he never gives us their perspective, let alone their words. It would be a more interesting book if he did. I realize I'm complaining about what it *doesn't* do, but it's just weird to read in 2018; it feels like its written in the present tense about a city that doesn't exist anymore, and never quite did.
Two and a half stars.
dark
informative
medium-paced
“Ecology of Fear” is essential reading for all angelinos and those living in LA. No book captures my feelings of the city more than Mike Davis, marxist historian and ecological sociologist, and we’re damn lucky to have had his extraordinary attention placed there. His framework and analysis turns hyperbole into existential materialism, its tagline: “In effect, we think ourselves gods upon the land but are still really just tourists.” This book just so happens to have a date of publication, but its contents will never be irrelevant, especially one of the great essays of all time, “The Case for Letting Malibu Burn.”
A fascinating social and environmental account of Los Angeles’s rise and fall from the mid-1800s to the 1990s. Davis is an apt storyteller despite his tangents veering into the arcane at times.