So sad. I loved this guy. His books had a major impact on how I see the world.
I've listened to him on podcasts, he was really great on The Antifada. Which of his books should I start with?
City of Quartz is phenomenal if you're interested in urban sociology. It's about the materialist formation of Los Angeles and its signatures, such as white flight or "Lakewoodism," tax revolts, surveillance architecture, and the draconian overreach of the LAPD, like through Operation Hammer. Part II of his first book, Prisoners of the American Dream, gives a very granular account of the ethos of 1980s corporate Democrats. For example, in an analogue to what happened to Bern dawg in '16 and '20, he writes about how DNC forces mobilized against Jesse Jackson. His book Planet of Slums is a quick read and also very eye-opening about how (sadly) ~2 billion people live in serious poverty around the world, and how slum dwellers represent over 90% of the urban populations in Chad, Ethiopia, Nepal, and elsewhere
Ecology of Fear and Late Victorian Holocausts are probably his two most well known works, but he also wrote a book called The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu in 2005, which some people found quite well worth revising in 2020.
Rest in power, Mike, one of the greatest socialist writers of the modern era, at least in the anglophone world.
RIP
‘Hope’ is not a scientific category. Nor is it a necessary obligation in polemical writing. On the other hand, intellectual honesty is and I try to call it as I see it, however wrongheaded my ideas and analyses may be. I manifestly do believe that we have arrived at a ‘final conflict’ that will decide the survival of a large part of poor humanity over the next half century. Against this future we must fight like the Red Army in the rubble of Stalingrad. Fight with hope, fight without hope, but fight absolutely.
From an interview in 2016
I’ve only read Late Victorian Holocausts, which was great. Need to read some of his other books
