Mike Davis | |
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| Born | Michael Ryan Davis (1946-03-10)March 10, 1946 Fontana, California, U.S. |
| Died | October 25, 2022(2022-10-25) (aged 76) San Diego, California, U.S. |
| Education | |
| Alma mater | University of California, Los Angeles |
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Michael Ryan Davis (March 10, 1946 – October 25, 2022) was an American writer, politicalactivist, urbantheorist, and historian based inSouthern California. He was best known for his investigations of power andsocial class in works such asCity of Quartz andLate Victorian Holocausts. His last twonon-fiction books wereSet the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties, co-authored byJon Wiener, andThe Monster Enters: COVID-19, Avian Flu, and the Plagues ofCapitalism (February 2022).
Michael Ryan Davis was born inFontana, California, on March 10, 1946, to Dwight and Mary (Ryan) Davis.[1][2] Dwight was fromVenedocia, Ohio, and was ofWelsh andProtestant background. He was a trade-unionDemocrat and an "anti-racist," which Davis attributed to his ancestors, Welshabolitionists andUnion soldiers who had settled in theBlack Swamp of Ohio.[3] Mary was anIrish Catholic fromColumbus, Ohio, and the daughter of Jack Ryan, a veteran of theSpanish–American War.[4] Both parents hitchhiked to California during theGreat Depression and came to theEl Cajon Valley, but moved to Fontana for a brief period during theSecond World War and after.[2][5]
Returning in 1953, Davis was raised in atract home[3] in the community ofBostonia[a] inSan Diego County.[2] His father Dwight worked in the wholesalemeat industry for the Superior Meat Company in downtownSan Diego and was a member of themeat cutter's union, and his uncle ran a wholesale meat company.[2][3][7] The nearly all-white neighborhood of Davis's childhood was populated by refugees of theGreat Depression, mostlySouthern Baptist families fromOklahoma andTexas, and had acountry-westernballroom androdeo. Davis identified with his community as a "redneck" and a "Westerner" in opposition to the "surfer" beach culture held by the wealthier,Methodist neighborhoods south of El Cajon's Main Street. Racism andanti-communism were endemic in the town, but Democrats held the dominant political role in the community due to the influence of theMachinists Union.[3]
Dwight Davis was anamateur geologist, and would bring the young Davis with him on frequent excursions in theColorado Desert to search foruranium deposits,abandoned mines,geodes, andpetrified wood. The favorite stop in the desert for the two was theOcotillo Wells gas station and café, owned by an eccentric elderly proprietor who would debate baseball with Dwight. In 1955, the young Davis was curious about several photos of cadavers taken by the proprietor and posted on the bulletin board in the café. The proprietor explained to Davis that the bodies were of young Mexican men, all executed in arroyos along theborder by being shot in the back. Davis remained haunted by the photos of the corpses, and the experience would influence his ideas on the border for the rest of his life.[8]
Davis described the family home as absent of books save for theVulgate Bible, but his parents were avid readers of newspapers andReader's Digest.[3] The family were among the few Catholics in the neighborhood, and the young Davis often found himself in fistfights with hisfundamentalist neighbors, which contributed to himrenouncing religion at the age of 10 and gravitating towards science with the advent ofSputnik.[7] Davis was a patriotic and conservative pre-adolescent, enlisting in theMarine Corps Base Camp Pendleton's "Devil Pups" program,[4] and until he was 15, had a picture ofEdward Teller, the "father of the hydrogen bomb" on his wall.[9]
Davis's patriotic phase was eroded by the dysfunction in his suburbanBostonia. At 12, Davis witnessed the aftermath of the Pendergast murders near his home, where five members of a family, including four children, were murdered by Carl Eder. Davis recalled the scene as if "...somebody had taken a bucket of red paint and thrown it on the walls." Davis also faced difficulties with a childhood bully in his neighborhood, Gordon Neumann,[7] who was hostile to children, and would later go on to shoot six, killing one of them, and then killing a woman before burning himself to death in 1993.[10] Neumann, who was much older, had previously attacked Davis in second grade, but he was rescued by his father who "almost killed" Neumann.Domestic violence was present in the community but never discussed, and he recalled hearing women and children being frequently beaten while in his backyard in the evenings.[7]
In high school, Davis became interested in history from the stories of his teachers, who were World War II veterans.[9] He was eventually exposed toJohn Hersey'sHiroshima, a reading which challenged all of his ideas on patriotism and the United States.[2][3] At 16, his father suffered a catastrophicheart attack which undermined the family's financial security. Davis had to leave school to provide for the family by working as a delivery truck driver for his uncle's wholesale meat company, delivering to restaurants throughout San Diego County.[2][11]
After his father's heart attack, Davis entered a brooding and troubled period, and was mostly interested indrag racing,Kerouac, and takingbullfighting classes.[2][4][12] Davis drank, raced, and stole cars with his friends, which culminated in a near-fatal car accident when he drove his Ford into a brick wall during a drag race, leaving him with a permanent 12 in (30 cm) scar on his left thigh.[7][9] Concurrently, while delivering to restaurants across San Diego'sEast County, he met Lee Gregovich, an older communist andWobbly whose family emigrated from theDalmatian coast to work in the copper mines of the American southwest. Gregovich wasblacklisted from many employers by theHUAC,[b] but had found a job as a cook at the Chicken Shack, an old-style roadhouse inJulian. The Chicken Shack was the most distant customer Davis delivered to, leading to a weeklyritual: after Davis put the order in the walk-in, Gregovich would provide Davis with red wine and the two would talk. At the end of every discussion, Gregovich urged the young Davis to "readMarx!"[14]
The "alcoholic, delinquent, and suicidal" Davis was then invited to aCongress of Racial Equality (CORE) demonstration at theBank of America in downtownSan Diego at the behest of his cousin, who had married the Blackcivil rights activist Jim Stone.[2][3][11] The group was doused in lighter fluid and threatened with ignition by a group of sailors,[2][4] before members of theNation of Islam rescued them from the fray.[16] Davis described the 1962 demonstration as his "burning bush moment."[3][11][12] Under the guidance of Stone, Davis returned to high school and began working at the San Diego chapter of CORE, to commendation from Gregovich.[14] Davis graduated as one of threevaledictorians ofEl Cajon Valley High, and earned a full scholarship toReed College.[4]
At Reed College, Davis was overwhelmed, alienated by thehippy culture and struggling academically.[4] He joined thePortland, Oregon chapter of CORE, which included the labor historianJeremy Brecher, who at the time was one of few members of the nascentStudents for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the Pacific Northwest. Living "drunk" in the dorm of a girlfriend for five weeks, Davis wasexpelled from Reed forintervisitation.[17] Davis was eligible for thedraft after his expulsion and passed the physical, but he was rejected after he insisted to the personnel at the induction center he belonged to severalsubversive organizations.[7] After reading thePort Huron Statement, and at the recommendation of Brecher, Davis boarded a Greyhound bus toNew York City to join the national office of SDS, arriving in November of 1964. In 1964 and 1965, Davis worked in the national office of SDS, which was becoming overwhelmed by the growing number of chapters. The national council meetings gave the office the responsibility to organize two major demonstrations, anAnti-Apartheidsit-in and the first march onWashington in protest of theVietnam War.[18][17]
Davis was one of the chief coordinators behind the Anti-Apartheid sit-in atChase Manhattan Bank.[19] In the aftermath of theSharpeville massacre, Chase Manhattan had led a consortium of international banks that bailed out the Apartheid government ofSouth Africa. The chief ally and tactical organizer to the sit-in was the New York chapter of theStudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), headed byBetita Martinez (then Elisabeth Sutherland), who Davis became acquainted with. Other supporters included exiled members of theAfrican National Congress and young members of theTanzanian mission to theUnited Nations.[18][20] On the Friday afternoon of March 19, 1965, some 600 demonstrators marched on Chase Manhattan's offices, with 43 arrested, in what was SDS's first act of civil disobedience.[21]
Davis returned to California in early 1965, arriving in the Bay Area during the transformation of theFree Speech Movement into theVietnam Day Committee. His only subsistence for the next six months was money earned by selling literature sent to him by the SDS national office. The demand for radical literature by students in the Bay Area was enough that Davis could afford to rent a derelict house with no electricity. Whilecouch surfing in the homes ofacademics, he became aware ofHerbert Marcuse, who was lauded by the organizers of the Free Speech Movement. Davis had struggled to understand any of Marcuse'sOne-Dimensional Man, but opted to write a letter to the respected academic about the accomplishments and motives of SDS. Marcuse responded, but was critical, suggesting that SDS was only serving to advanceLyndon B. Johnson'swar on poverty, and that the organization should seek a more oppositional approach.[18][17] While in Oakland, Davis burned hisdraft card in protest of Johnson'sintervention in theDominican Republic.[22]
In June of 1965, after burning his draft card, Davis was sent by the SDS national committee to Los Angeles, where he was ordered to assist in organizing protestors against the construction of the210 freeway through a historically Black neighborhood inPasadena.[4][22] Davis and other SDS members also organized weekly meetings to spread awareness about the draft on local campuses.[23] Working in South Los Angeles, he befriendedLevi Kingston, a formerjazzbassist and radicalized sailor from theMerchant Marine. Kingston previously ran a coffeehouse, Pogo's Swamp, which served as a local hub forbeatniks and radical students atLos Angeles City College, including the future founder ofUS Organization,Ron Everett. Kingston connected Davis with local activists in South Central, and the two worked together organizing draft resistance and doing draft counseling.[18][24] On August 16, 1965, during theWatts uprising, Kingston was shot at by avigilante from the roof of a fraternity house ofUSC.[25] Davis was at Kingston's side during the shooting, and noted that Kingston, who was Black, was the only one targeted.[26][27] Kingston later organized a Black draft resistance organization, theFreedom Draft Movement, and remained close friends with Davis for the rest of his life.[18][24] Davis viewed Kingston as his "big brother" and one of the major figures in his life, and would dedicate his last book,Set the Night on Fire, to Kingston, who died shortly before it was published.[18]
In 1966, 19-year-old Davis, characterized as a "draft card-burning SDS leader," debated actorKirk Douglas onMelvin Belli's talk show.[28] The section of an article in theLos Angeles Times on the debate, titled "Outtalked by 19-Year-Old," described Davis "...to have much less trouble stating his case then either Belli or Douglas," while Douglas "...was having some difficulty being articulate on his own behalf."[29] In his recollection on the appearance, Davis, the first to be on, was confronted by Douglas as he was leaving the studio. Douglas allegedly called him a "commie dupe." Davis responded by telling Douglas that he admired his appearance inPaths of Glory, but questioned why the actor would star in ananti-war film while serving as a goodwill ambassador for the Johnson administration inSoutheast Asia. According to Davis, Douglas was "speechless."[18]
As the Southern California regional organizer in 1966, Davis organized protests in support of the anti-war and civil rights movement. The first, in February, was a rally in solidarity withJulian Bond and the peace demonstrations in the South, meant to bring closer ties between the peace and civil rights movements.[30] In May, Davis helped organize a protest against the manufacture ofnapalm used in the Vietnam War byDow Chemical, with SDSpicketing the Dow Chemical plant inTorrance in coordination with other national protests originating from the Stanford Committee for Peace in Viet Nam.[31][9] The Torrance picket was countered by demonstrators from theVictory in Vietnam Association,[32] headed by local chapter leaderDana Rohrabacher.[33][34] Davis also frequently spoke on behalf of SDS in public debates[35] and conferences on world affairs and social revolutions.[36]
In 1967, Davis briefly left Los Angeles to organize for SDS in Texas,[37] and lived inAustin. While in Texas, Davis sought out thepopulist news editor Archer Fullingham. At the time, Davis was still wary ofMarxism and the number of his friends who were becoming Marxists, and instead was interested in the idea of reviving thePopulist Party. He approached Fullingham at his residence inKountze, and proposed the idea to the editor, suggesting that Fullingham could be the leader of the party. According to Davis, Fullingham rebuked him, calling him "...one of the dumbestpiss-ants I've ever met," and suggested Davis "figure out this stuff for yourself."[11]
In late 1967 and 1968, Davis returned to Los Angeles and joined the Southern California District of theCommunist Party, headed byDorothy Healey, in solidarity with their stand against theSoviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.[14] He left SDS after the 1969 "Days of Rage," and looked back on the achievements of the movement with ambivalence.[9]
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg) | This sectionneeds expansion with: Davis's life past 1968: Truck driver, teamsters, college, time in Ireland, London, and Scotland, writing & literary controversy. You can help byadding to it.(October 2022) |
His education was punctuated by stints as a meat cutter, truck driver, and aCongress of Racial Equality (CORE) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) activist. At 28, Davis returned to college, studying economics and history at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles on a union scholarship.[12][4] Davis earned his BA and MA degrees, but did not complete the PhD program in history.[7]
Davis was a 1996–1997 Getty Scholar at theGetty Research Institute[38] and received aMacArthur Fellowship Award in 1998.[1] He won theLannan Literary Award for Nonfiction in 2007.[39]
Davis was Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Creative Writing at theUniversity of California, Riverside, and an editor of theNew Left Review. Davis taughturban theory at theSouthern California Institute of Architecture and atStony Brook University before he secured a position atUniversity of California, Irvine's history department. He also contributed to the British monthlySocialist Review, the organ of the BritishSocialist Workers Party.[40] As a journalist and essayist, Davis wrote for a number of well-known publications, includingThe Nation, theNew Left Review,Jacobin, and the UK'sNew Statesman.[41][42][43][44]
Davis was a self-defined international socialist and "Marxist-Environmentalist".[45] He wrote in the tradition of socialists/architects/regionalism advocates such asLewis Mumford andGarrett Eckbo, whom he cited inEcology of Fear. His early book,Prisoners of theAmerican Dream, was an important contribution to the Marxist study of U.S. history, political economy, and the state, as well as to the doctrine ofrevolutionary integrationism.[4]
Davis was also the author of two fiction books for young adults:Land of the Lost Mammoths andPirates, Bats and Dragons.[46][47]
Reviewers have praised Davis' prose style and his exposés of economic, social, environmental and political injustice. His bookPlanet of Slums inspired a special issue ofMute magazine on global slums.[48]
According to Todd Purdum's sharply critical 1999 piece, Davis "acknowledged fabricating an entire conversation with a local environmentalist, Lewis McAdams, for a cover story he wrote forL.A. Weekly a decade before (in the late 1980s); he defended it as an early attempt at journalistic scene-setting."[49] However, in his October 2004Geography article, "That Certain Feeling: Mike Davis, Truth and the City," Kevin Stannard held that this "controversy is explained by Davis's ambiguous balancing of academic research and reportage".[50]
Jon Wiener has defended Davis inThe Nation, maintaining that his critics are political opponents exaggerating the significance of small errors.[51]
Some academic leftists have also criticized Davis's focus on modern urban structures. In a review essay onCity of Quartz, geographerCindi Katz criticized itsapocalypticism asmasculinist and tied it to the flattening of people'ssubjectivity as they are made into "characters" more than social actors.[52] CitingJane Jacobs' attacks upon Lewis Mumford in herDeath and Life of Great American Cities,Andy Merrifield (MetroMarxism, Routledge 2002) wrote that Davis' analysis was "harsh" (p. 170). Davis' work, particularlyPlanet of Slums, has been criticized by Merrifield and urban studies professor Tom Angotti as "anti-urban" and "overly apocalyptic".[53]
These critics charge that Davis failed to focus on activist groups among the poor and working class in solving problems—as advocated byManuel Castells andMarshall Berman.[54]
Davis was married five times.[1] His first four marriages ended in divorce. Davis met his first wife in SDS, who had returned from the 1964 "Freedom Summer" in Mississippi trying to organize tugboat crews.[9] Davis's final marriage to Mexican artist and professorAlessandra Moctezuma lasted until his death.[55] Davis and Moctezuma lived inSan Diego, California.[56] He had one child with his third wife Brigid Loughran, one child with his fourth wife Sophie Spalding, and two children with Moctezuma.[1]
Davis was diagnosed with cancer in 2020.[22] In a July 25, 2022, story inThe Los Angeles Times, Davis said, "I'm in the terminal stage of metastatic esophageal cancer but still up and around the house...I guess what I think about the most is that I'm just extraordinarily furious and angry. If I have a regret, it's not dying in battle or at a barricade as I've always romantically imagined — you know, fighting."[57][58] He died fromesophageal cancer on October 25, 2022, at age 76.[59][2][1]
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| Preceded by | Deutscher Memorial Prize 1991 | Succeeded by |
