Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #52947 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Customer Reviews

Evil Paradises
Mike Davis has done it again: this collection, edited by Davis together with Daniel Bertrand Monk, is yet another forceful, readable, and compelling indictment of capitalism and its (re)shaping of our one and only planet. Unlike most other Davis books, this one is not mostly written by him, but instead collects a series of essays and observations by various authors on the single topic of capitalist, neoliberal cities and their anti-human properties. As is the nature of essay collections, there is some unevenness both in theme and quality in the book, but the general level of insight as well as writing style is high throughout, and almost all the essays are worth reading.

The collection totals some 19 articles, containing a fairly broad range of topics within the constraints of the general subject. Several essays are about the creation of neoliberal claustrophobic cities for the wealthy, from Hong Kong to Budapest; particularly worthwhile in this range is the polemic against the nightmarish 'paradise' of Dubai, now so hip in the Western media, done by Mike Davis himself. But there are also other themes: Sara Lipton has an article on monasteries as fashionable retreats for the bourgeoisie, Joe Day writes about modern 'personal musea' created by the ultra-wealthy as showpieces, Rebecca Schoenkopf mocks the bizarrely spoiled worldview of the upper class of Orange County, and so on. China Miéville's well-known essay on libertarian ideals, "Floating Utopias", is also part of this collection.

Overall, not all contributions are equally interesting, but generally this is a great book for becoming (or staying) infuriated about the pretense, arrogance, and cowardice of the wealthy few in our times, as well as the stranglehold they have over public space and even the formation of the very cities the millions of poor also have to live in; the same poor who do the work that makes their "Evil Paradises" possible.