Planet of Slums
From the sprawling barricadas of Lima to the garbage hills of Manila, urbanization has been disconnected from industrialization, even economic growth. Davis portrays a vast humanity warehoused in shantytowns and exiled from the formal world economy. He argues that the rise of this informal urban proletariat is a wholly original development unforeseen by either classical Marxism or neoliberal theory.
Are the great slums, as a terrified Victorian middle class once imagined, volcanoes waiting to erupt? Davis provides the first global overview of the diverse religious, ethnic, and political movements competing for the souls of the new urban poor. He surveys Hindu fundamentalism in Bombay, the Islamist resistance in Casablanca and Cairo, street gangs in Cape Town and San Salvador, Pentecostalism in Kinshasa and Rio de Janeiro, and revolutionary populism in Caracas and La Paz.Planet of Slums ends with a provocative meditation on the "war on terrorism" as an incipient world war between the American empire and the new slum poor.
Hardback, 228 pages
ISBN: 9781844670222
March 2006
$24.00 / £15.99
Other Editions
Ebook
ISBN: 9781844674855
September 2007
$15.99
ISBN: 9781844671601
September 2007
$19.95 / £9.99
Reviews
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“In this trenchantly argued book, Mike Davis quantifies the nightmarish mass production of slums that marks the contemporary city. With cool indignation, Davis argues that the exponential growth of slums is no accident but the result of a perfect storm of corrupt leadership, institutional failure, and IMF-imposed Structural Adjustment Programs leading to a massive transfer of wealth from poor to rich. Scourge of neo-liberal nostrums, Davis debunks the irresponsible myth of self-help salvation, showing exactly who gets the boot from ‘bootstrap capitalism.’ Like the work of Jacob Riis, Ida Tarbell, and Lincoln Steffans over a century ago, this searing indictment makes the shame of our cities urgently clear.”
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“A profound enquiry into an urgent subject ... a brilliant book.”
Blog
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New Left Review - issue 79 out now
New Left Review 79 is out now featuring the following articles:
Mike Davis: The Last White Election
Surveying the US political landscape, Mike Davis identifies the complex social and geographical determinants of Obama's November victory. Within an increasingly polarized ideological force field, how will the coming struggles between Democratic President and Senate and Republican House unfold?
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New Left Review—new issue out now
The November/December issue of the New Left Review has been released, and includes the following essays:
Mike Davis: Spring Confronts Winter
Against a backdrop of world economic slump, what forces will shape the outcome of contests between a raddled system and its emergent challengers? Mike Davis examines echoes of past rebellions in 2011's global upsurge of protest.
Mike Davis is author of Planet of Slums.
Robin Blackburn: Crisis 2.0
Internationally, austerity measures have resulted in unemployment, stagnation, the imposition of technocracies, the destruction of welfare systems and a collapse in global demand. Robin Blackburn outlines some radical transitional policy responses that could address the underlying causes of the financial crisis.
Robin Blackburn is the author of Age Shock: How Finance is Failing Us and The American Crucible.
Perry Anderson: Magri's Farewell
Perry Anderson looks back upon the life and work of Lucio Magri, the Italian revolutionary and writer who died last year. An incisive critic of the PCI from both inside and outside of the Party, Anderson traces Magri's unique synthesis of theory and popular struggle from the Hungarian Revolt to the Iraq War, including his last work, The Tailor of Ulm.
Visit the New Left Review website to read the essays in full (subscribers only)
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Verso Books at the Occupy Boston Library
Via Stephen Squibb, a photo of Verso titles proudly stacked on the Occupy Boston Library milk crates:
Books in the photograph:
Planet of Slums, by Mike Davis
Close to the Edge: In Search of the Global Hip Hop Generation, by Sujatha Fernandes
I'm with the Bears: Stories from a Damaged Planet, with contributions by Margaret Atwood, Paolo Bacigalupi, T.C. Boyle, Toby Litt, Lydia Millet, David Mitchell, Nathaniel Rich, Kim Stanley Robinson, Helen Simpson, and Wu Ming 1, and with an introduction by Bill McKibbenThe Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad, by Tariq Ali
Meltdown: The End of the Age of Greed, by Paul Mason
The American Crucible: Slavery, Emancipation, and Human Rights, by Robin Blackburn
News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media, by Juan González and Joseph Torres
Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers, by Frank Bardacke
