Urban Jeremiah: Mike Davis, 1946-2022

Tributes are pouring in for Mike Davis, the chronicler of urban apocalypse who died Monday at age 76. Most of these eulogies have focused on the political passions—fellow feeling for the dispossessed, hot-burning rage for their class enemies—that animated Davis’s remarkable life and career. This is fair enough. But attention should also be paid to his form and craft, the mastery of literary nonfiction that gave rise to a body of work that will long endure.