Mike Davis (scholar) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Mike Davis
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Michael Ryan Davis
March 10, 1946 Fontana, California, U.S.
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| Died | October 25, 2022 (aged 76) San Diego, California, U.S.
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| Alma mater | University of California, Los Angeles |
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Michael Ryan Davis (born March 10, 1946 – died October 25, 2022) was an American writer, activist, and historian. He lived in Southern California. He is famous for his books that explore how power and social groups work, like City of Quartz and Late Victorian Holocausts. His last non-fiction book was Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties, which he wrote with Jon Wiener.
Contents
Michael Davis: Early Life and Activism
Growing Up in California: 1946–1962
Michael Ryan Davis was born in Fontana, California, on March 10, 1946. His parents were Dwight and Mary Davis. His father, Dwight, was a Democrat who supported trade unions. He was also against racism, following his ancestors who were abolitionists (people who wanted to end slavery) and soldiers in the Union Army. His mother, Mary, was Irish Catholic. Both parents moved to California during the Great Depression, a time when many people struggled to find jobs and money.
Michael grew up in Bostonia in San Diego County. His father worked in the meat business. Most people in their neighborhood were from states like Oklahoma and Texas. As a young person, Michael was interested in drag racing and bullfighting.
A serious car accident when he was young left him with a permanent scar. Later, his father had a severe heart attack, which made it hard for the family financially. Michael had to leave school to work as a delivery driver. During this time, he met Lee Gregovich, an older man who was a communist and a "Wobbly" (a member of the Industrial Workers of the World union). Gregovich encouraged Michael to "read Marx!"
Michael finished high school as one of the top students and earned a scholarship to Reed College.
Becoming an Activist: 1962–1968
At Reed College, Michael felt out of place. He joined the Portland, Oregon chapter of CORE (Congress of Racial Equality), a civil rights group. He was later asked to leave Reed College. After this, he was eligible for the military draft. He was rejected after telling officials he was part of groups that opposed the government.
In 1963, Michael joined the national office of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) in New York City. SDS was a student activist group. He helped organize important protests, including an Anti-Apartheid sit-in. This protest was against Chase Manhattan Bank for supporting the Apartheid government in South Africa, which had strict racial separation laws. About 600 people marched, and 43 were arrested. This was SDS's first act of civil disobedience (peaceful protest against laws).
In 1965, Michael returned to California. He joined the Vietnam Day Committee, which protested the Vietnam War. He made money by selling radical books and articles. He also learned about Herbert Marcuse, a respected thinker. Michael wrote to Marcuse, who suggested SDS should take a stronger stand against the government. While in Oakland, Michael burned his draft card to protest the war.
Later in 1965, Michael moved to Los Angeles. He helped organize protests against building a freeway through a Black neighborhood in Pasadena. He also helped students learn about the draft. He became friends with Levi Kingston, a sailor who also worked to organize draft resistance. Michael was arrested several times for protesting Dow Chemical's role in making napalm for the Vietnam War.
In 1966, when he was 19, Michael debated actor Kirk Douglas on a TV talk show. A newspaper article said Michael was better at explaining his views than Douglas.
In 1967, Michael briefly went to Texas. He was interested in the Populist Movement, a political movement that supported ordinary people. He tried to convince a news editor, Archer Fullingham, to lead a new Populist Party. Fullingham told him to figure things out for himself.
In late 1967, Michael returned to Los Angeles and joined the Communist Party. He left SDS after the 1969 "Days of Rage" protests.
After his early activism, Michael worked as a truck driver and meat cutter. At 28, he went back to college, studying economics and history at the University of California, Los Angeles. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees.
Michael Davis: Career and Writings
Michael Davis was a respected scholar and writer. He received a MacArthur Fellowship Award in 1998, which is a special award given to talented people. He also won the Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction in 2007.
He was a professor at the University of California, Riverside. He also taught about cities (urban theory) at other universities. Michael wrote for many well-known magazines like The Nation and Jacobin.
Michael called himself an international socialist and a "Marxist-Environmentalist." This means he believed in social equality and protecting the environment. He wrote many books, including Prisoners of the American Dream, which looked at the history of the U.S. working class.
He also wrote two fiction books for young adults: Land of the Lost Mammoths and Pirates, Bats and Dragons.
Michael Davis: Personal Life and Passing
Michael Davis was married to Alessandra Moctezuma, an artist and professor. They lived in San Diego, California. He had four children.
In 2020, Michael was diagnosed with cancer. He passed away from esophageal cancer on October 25, 2022, at the age of 76. He once said he was "extraordinarily furious and angry" about his illness and wished he could have died fighting for a cause.
Awards and Honors
- 1991: Deutscher Memorial Prize, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles
- 1996–1997: Getty Scholar at the Getty Research Institute
- 1998: MacArthur Fellowship
- 2002: World History Association Book Prize, Late Victorian Holocausts
- 2007: Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction
Works by Michael Davis
Nonfiction Books
- Prisoners of the American Dream: Politics and Economy in the History of the U.S. Working Class (1986)
- City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (1990)
- Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster (1998)
- Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the U.S. Big City (2000)
- Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World (2001)
- The Grit Beneath the Glitter: Tales from the Real Las Vegas, edited with Hal Rothman (2002)
- Dead Cities, And Other Tales (2003)
- Under the Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See, with Jim Miller and Kelly Mayhew (2003)
- The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu (2005)
- Planet of Slums: Urban Involution and the Informal Working Class (2006)
- No One Is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the U.S.-Mexico Border, with Justin Akers Chacon (2006)
- Buda's Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb (2007)
- In Praise of Barbarians: Essays against Empire (2007)
- Evil Paradises: Dreamworlds of Neoliberalism, edited with Daniel Bertrand Monk (2007)
- Be Realistic: Demand the Impossible (2012)
- Old Gods, New Enigmas: Marx's Lost Theory (2018)
- Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties, co-authored by Jon Wiener (2020)
Fiction Books
- Land of the Lost Mammoths (2003)
- Pirates, Bats, and Dragons (2004)
See also
