[lbo-talk] Re: Planet of Slums by Davis

Jim Straub rustbeltjacobin at gmail.com
Sun Oct 8 14:57:19 PDT 2006


Has anyone on the list read Mike Davis' most recent, the Planet of Slums book? I just finished it and am writing a review, and was wondering how it was received in this millieu.

I am a big fan of Davis, but found myself irritated with the first half of the book for offering unsystematic snapshots of misery rather than a linear and thorough examination of the topic. I attributed this to Davis getting a bit dilletantish maybe, throwing off a different short book on a wildly different topic every couple months. But the second half of the book gathered steam and blew me away--- I mean the sub-headings in the "Slum Ecology" chapter include such classic horror-hyperbole davis classics as "Living In Shit" and "Baby Killers". And the closing section on Kinshasa was so arresting and shaking.

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