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Article: Apocalypse Now?(Book Review)
- Article from:
- The Nation
- Article date:
- January 6, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Nation Company L.P. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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DEAD CITIES: and Other Tales. By Mike Davis. New Press. 432 pp. $27.95.
Judgment Day is everyday with Mike Davis. The La Brea tar pits are his spiritual birthplace, apocalypse is his middle name and the plagues that visited the ancient Egyptians are his psychic companions. As readers of his earlier powerful apoca-literature, City of Quartz and Ecology of Fear, know, this mordantly scathing writer doesn't just research his work, he exhumes it.
Damning humankind's "malice to the landscape" and its abused inhabitants, Davis turned Southern California's palm-strewn paradise into an allegory of fire and brimstone, a climactic urban horror story. "The best ...