Mike Davis, in undated photo.
Many were saddened when they heard that Mike Davis had passed back in late October. Davis was an activist and historian with a San Diego connection and, as Thomas Reifer in a thoughtful tribute in the Union-Tribune wrote, “embodied a rare combination of brilliance, storytelling and committed scholar activism.”
He is probably most famous for publishing the “City of Quartz: Excavating the Future of Los Angeles,”in 1990, which since has become a “bible” at architectural schools. Then came his “Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster.” And many more.
Reifer: “Born into a working-class Catholic family in the Fontana suburb of Los Angeles, but raised in San Diego, Davis’ encounter with the civil rights movement, before a long sojourn as a meat cutter and long-distance truck driver, after his father’s heart attack, inspired a lifetime of activism.” At a young age, Mike got involved in SDS, Students for a Democratic Society, while in college and his rebel radicalism stayed with him to the end.
Reifer:
After moving back to San Diego in the early 21st century, Davis collaborated with Kelly Mayhew and Jim Miller in “Under the Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See,” illuminating the fierce labor struggles, free speech fights and corruption in what is today America’s eighth-largest city, long dominated by organized capital and state-corporate militarism.
Here is Thomas Reifer’s “Appreciation: Mike Davis lives, in our rebel hearts”. He is a sociology professor at the University of San Diego.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Glad to see a tribute that includes “Under the Perfect Sun” which Davis co-authored with Jim Miller and Kelley Mayhew. This book, seminal to understanding San Diego, is too often overlooked. Thanks Editordude.