City of Quartz

A book recommendation from San Fran folks at a wedding this weekend. "You haven't heard of Mike Davis?"

"You mean the guy who used to play for the A's?"

"No, this awesome writer, City of Quartz, World of Slums."

"No."

"That surprises me."

The first amazon review:

"Davis is well-known in radical circles as a popular writer on various issues relating to labor movements and the like. This is essentially a history of the city of Los Angeles and its surroundings from a radical perspective. It's quite well-done and very informative (at least to an ignoramus like me), but Davis goes overboard now and then in seeing a conspiracy to repress the poor behind everything. He also has the tendency to call historical incidences of repression a "holocaust" (he actually uses this word multiple times for different things), which I don't like being used in this manner. Aside from that though, it's a welcome different approach from the usual hagiographic or hip postmodern analyses of conglomeration cities like LA. There's not much more I can say about it, as whether you like his left-wing critical vignettes or not will be mostly a matter of taste - judge it for yourself."

SF. Typical.