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Planet of Slums

Planet of Slums Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (London: Verso, 2006), 228 pp. Common KnoWLEDgE The thousand million people who live in slums have little to bargain with. Across the globe, slums are a vast hell, their residents often outlawed or shoved around to keep them out of sight. Shelter is crowded, locations remote, steep, flooded, or poisoned. Slums drown in excrement: no toilets, sewers, piped water, privacy. Alleyways stink. Babies die young. Foreign experts and local elites tout entrepreneurial self-help, but petty trade is merely a last desperate lifeline. NGOs help themselves more than their clients, IMF and World Bank policies have halted growth and have pushed health, education, and utilities beyond reach, often in collusion with local kleptocrats. Slums make a mockery of the “just world” pretensions of market liberalism. Slums breed ignorance, resentment, irrationality, zealotry, suicide bombers, and ruthless loathing in the rich West. But Western armies, like most other interventions, have little purchase on the casbahs. Most readers will finish this compelling book deflated and shamed. Then we will shrug our shoulders and get on with our lives. — Avner Offer doi 10.1215/0961754x-2008-032 http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Common Knowledge Duke University Press

Planet of Slums

Common Knowledge , Volume 14 (3) – Oct 1, 2008

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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
© 2008 by Duke University Press
ISSN
0961-754X
eISSN
0961-754X
DOI
10.1215/0961754X-2008-032
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (London: Verso, 2006), 228 pp. Common KnoWLEDgE The thousand million people who live in slums have little to bargain with. Across the globe, slums are a vast hell, their residents often outlawed or shoved around to keep them out of sight. Shelter is crowded, locations remote, steep, flooded, or poisoned. Slums drown in excrement: no toilets, sewers, piped water, privacy. Alleyways stink. Babies die young. Foreign experts and local elites tout entrepreneurial self-help, but petty trade is merely a last desperate lifeline. NGOs help themselves more than their clients, IMF and World Bank policies have halted growth and have pushed health, education, and utilities beyond reach, often in collusion with local kleptocrats. Slums make a mockery of the “just world” pretensions of market liberalism. Slums breed ignorance, resentment, irrationality, zealotry, suicide bombers, and ruthless loathing in the rich West. But Western armies, like most other interventions, have little purchase on the casbahs. Most readers will finish this compelling book deflated and shamed. Then we will shrug our shoulders and get on with our lives. — Avner Offer doi 10.1215/0961754x-2008-032

Journal

Common KnowledgeDuke University Press

Published: Oct 1, 2008

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