Set the Night on Fire: L.A in the Sixties

by Mike Davis

Paperback, 2021

Status

Available

Call number

F869.L857

Publication

Verso (2021), 800 pages

Description

A magisterial, riveting movement history of Los Angeles in the SixtiesLos Angeles in the sixties was a hotbed of political and social upheaval. The city was a launchpad for Black Powerwhere Malcolm X and Angela Davis first came to prominence and the Watts uprising shook the nation. The city was home to the Chicano Blowouts and Chicano Moratorium, as well as being the birthplace of Asian American as a political identity. It was a locus of the antiwar movement, gay liberation movement, and womens movement, and, of course, the capital of California counterculture. Mike Davis and Jon Wiener provide the first comprehensive movement history of L.A. in the sixties, drawing on extensive archival research and dozens of interviews with principal figures, as well as the authors storied personal histories as activists. Following on from Davis's award winning L.A. history, City of Quartz, Set the Night on Fire is a historical tour de force, delivered in scintillating and fiercely beautiful prose.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member stravinsky
"The atmosphere was charged with the special excitement that occurs when a group of people can see and visibly measure their potential power for the first time."

I wish this could've been the epic sprawl Mike Davis and Jon Weiner hinted at in the beginning of the book (the main text is ~640 pages,
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the rest being references and notes). Instead, due to publisher concerns—and maybe lack of endurance—we're provided with an account that mostly focuses on the city proper. A damn good one, mind you.
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Language

Original language

English

Physical description

800 p.; 7.8 inches

ISBN

1839761229 / 9781839761225
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