Mike Davis (1946-2022) was a writer, political activist, urban theorist, and historian. He is best known for his investigations of power and class in works such as City of Quartz, Late Victorian Holocausts, and Planet of Slums. His last two non-fiction books were Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties, co-authored by Jon Wiener, and The Monster Enters: COVID-19, Avian Flu, and the Plagues of Capitalism. He was the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the Lannan Literary Award.

"If America is over, the prose laureate of its decline is Mike Davis...a vivid indictment of the social and environmental chaos enveloping urban America." -J.G. Ballard

"A crash course in what makes Davis so good."
-San Francisco Chronicle

"Davis culls nuggets of avarice and depredation the way miners chisel coal."
-The Nation

"Rangy, astute, switchblade-wicked essays."
-Kirkus Reviews

"Smart and tough: an author with one eye out for the underdog."
-Library Journal