''City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles'' is a 1990 book by
Mike Davis examining how contemporary
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
has been shaped by different powerful forces in its history. The book opens with Davis visiting the ruins of the socialist community of
Llano, organized in 1914 in what is now the
Antelope Valley
The Antelope Valley is located in northern Los Angeles County, California, and the southeast portion of Kern County, California, and constitutes the western tip of the Mojave Desert. It is situated between the Tehachapi, Sierra Pelona, and the ...
north of Los Angeles. The community moved in 1918, leaving behind the "ghost" of an alternative future for LA.
Davis then explores intellectuals' competing ideas of Los Angeles, from the "sunshine" promoted by real estate boosters early in the 20th century, to the "debunkers," the muckraking journalists of the early century, to the "
noir" writers of the 1930s and the exiles fleeing from fascism in Europe, and finally the "sorcerers," the scientists at
Caltech
The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...
.
The rest of the book explores how different groups wielded power in different ways: the downtown Protestant elite, led by the
Chandler family
The Chandler Family is a fictional family from the American soap opera '' All My Children''. The Chandler family is one of the most powerful and wealthiest families in the show's history. Rising up from poverty in Pigeon Hollow, West Virginia, the ...
of the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
''; the new elite of the Jewish
Westside; the surprisingly powerful homeowner groups; the
Los Angeles Police Department
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the municipal police department of Los Angeles, California. With 9,974 police officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the third-large ...
. He covers the Irish leadership of the Catholic Church and its friction with the numerically dominant Latino element. The book concludes at what Davis calls the "junkyard of dreams," the former steel town of
Fontana
Fontana may refer to:
Places
Italy
*Fontana Liri, comune in the Province of Frosinone
*Fontanafredda, comune in the Province of Pordenone
*Fontanarosa, comune in the Province of Avellino
*Francavilla Fontana, comune in the Province of Brindisi
* ...
, east of LA, a victim of de-industrialization and decay.
The second edition of the book, published in 2006, contains a new preface detailing changes in Los Angeles since the work was written in the late 1980s.
Critical reception
The ''Los Angeles Times'' architecture critic, Christopher Hawthorne, criticized ''City of Quartz'' for its "dark generalization and knee-jerk far-leftism," but concluded that the book "is without question the most significant book on Los Angeles urbanism to appear since
Reyner Banham
Peter Reyner Banham Hon. FRIBA (2 March 1922 – 19 March 1988) was an English architectural critic and writer best known for his theoretical treatise ''Theory and Design in the First Machine Age'' (1960) and for his 1971 book ''Los Angeles: Th ...
's ''Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies'' was published in 1971." He ranked it "one of the three most important treatments of that subject ever written, joining ''Four Ecologies'' and
Carey McWilliams' 1946 book ''Southern California: An Island on the Land''".
In the ''
Boston Review
''Boston Review'' is an American quarterly political and literary magazine. It publishes political, social, and historical analysis, literary and cultural criticism, book reviews, fiction, and poetry, both online and in print. Its signature form ...
'', Mark Haefele called the book "a black hole of Southland noir," but also wrote, "What's brilliant about Davis's book is his perception of Los Angeles as incarceration, its new prisons a major industry... He's right that a broad landscape of the city is turning itself into Postmodern
Piranesi
Giovanni Battista (or Giambattista) Piranesi (; also known as simply Piranesi; 4 October 1720 – 9 November 1778) was an Italian Classical archaeologist, architect, and artist, famous for his etchings of Rome and of fictitious and atmospheric ...
. And to young black males in particular, the city has become a prisoner factory."
The ''
San Francisco Examiner
The ''San Francisco Examiner'' is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and published since 1863.
Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst, and flagship of the Hearst Corporat ...
'' concluded that "Few books shed as much light on their subjects as this opinionated and original excavation of Los Angeles from the mythical debris of its past and future", and
Peter Ackroyd
Peter Ackroyd (born 5 October 1949) is an English biographer, novelist and critic with a specialist interest in the history and culture of London. For his novels about English history and culture and his biographies of, among others, William ...
, writing in ''
The Times of London
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fo ...
'', called the book "A history as fascinating as it is instructive."
[Reviews of ''City of Quartz'']
Versobooks.com
/ref>
Reviews
* Blanchard, Marc. ''Cultural Anthropology'', Vol. 7, No. 4 (November, 1992).
* Bray, Chris. ''Suck.com
Suck.com was an online magazine, one of the earliest ad-supported content sites on the Internet. It featured daily editorial content on a great variety of topics, including politics and pop-culture. Launched in 1995 and geared towards a Generatio ...
''
Wall of Voodoo
(December 15, 1998).
* Decker, Jeffrey Louis. ''American Quarterly
''American Quarterly'' is an academic journal and the official publication of the American Studies Association. The journal covers topics of both domestic and international concern in the United States and is considered a leading resource in the ...
'', Vol. 44, No. 1 (March, 1992).
* Erie. Steven P. ''Political Science Quarterly
''Political Science Quarterly'' is an American double blind peer-reviewed academic journal covering government, politics, and policy, published since 1886 by the Academy of Political Science. Its editor-in-chief is Robert Y. Shapiro (Columbia Uni ...
'', Vol. 107., No. 1 (Spring, 1992).
* Ford, Richard T. ''Transition'', No. 57 (1992).
* Horton, John. ''Contemporary Sociology'', Vol. 20, No. 6 (November, 1991).
* Kirkham, Pat. ''Journal of Design History'', Vol. 5., No. 2 (1992).
* Knox, Paul. ''Annals of the Association of American Geographers'', Vol. 83, No. 1 (March 1993).
* Williams, Rosalind. ''Journal of American History
''The Journal of American History'' is the official academic journal of the Organization of American Historians. It covers the field of American history and was established in 1914 as the ''Mississippi Valley Historical Review'', the official jo ...
'', Vol. 79, No. 4 (March, 1993).
See also
* Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties
References
{{reflist
1990 non-fiction books
History of Los Angeles
Sociology books
History books about the United States
Books about urbanism
Marxist books
Verso Books books
Books about Los Angeles