The unfulfilled American dream stalks Mike Davis’s dystopian Los Angeles in his masterful City of Quartz
- Written by Ian Tyrrell, Emeritus Professor of History, UNSW Sydney
Los AngelesGilad Rom/Flickr, CC BYIn an occasional series, we look at books that have become cultural touchstones.
The death of the radical historian Mike Davis, on October 25 in San Diego, brings back memories of Los Angeles, and of Davis’s landmark book on that city.
When I first picked up City of Quartz (1990), I wondered at the title,...





