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Rieff, David : Los Angeles : Capital of the Third World

Simon & Schuster, New York, 1991

ISBN 0671671707

FIRST PRINTING of the First Edition. A critical and unsentimental analysis of Los Angeles and what it has become as it has filled with Third World immigrants, the author presenting it as the likely fate of the rest of America in the twenty-first century: gridlocked with traffic, out of control crime, drugs galore, weird cults and religions and quasi-religions everywhere, all morality in the dustbin, illegal aliens as the norm and citizenship becoming the non-norm as the US borders are evaporated, much more, overall definitely not a pretty picture of the future - or the present. Hardcover with dust jacket, maps, indexed, 270pp. A very nice copy. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Book. Book Condition: Fine. Binding: Hardcover. Jacket: Fine

First Edition.

Rieff, David : Los Angeles: Capital Of The Third World

Simon & Schuster, New York City, NY, 1991

ISBN 0671671707

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 270 pages. Book-length account on subject. The sequel to and companion volume of David Rieff's "Going To Miami: Exiles, Tourists, And Refugees In The New America" (1987). One of the most important books for our time. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents David Rieff's "Los Angeles: Capital of The Third World". Appropriates Walter Benjamin's "Paris, Capital of The 19th Century" to tell us about Los Angeles, Capital of The 21st Century. "The incarnation of the American Dream radically transformed by the new immigrants from Asia and Latin America, who have been arriving in their millions, both legally and illegally. Instead of Hollywood writ large and fantasies of material bliss come true, shows the gridlocked freeways, where easy travel is just a memory. Takes us to immigrant neighborhoods where Buddhist temples abut Korean supermarkets. Ventures into Downtown LA, where the latest breed of local booster persuasively hymns the city as the new capital of the Pacific Rim. Also takes the reader to the Mexican border, where the author watches illegals gather before making the crossing into El Norte. Los Angeles: No longer the stuff of the American Dream, but of Mexican, Salvadoran, Guatemalan, and Korean dreams" (Publisher's blurb). One of Rieff's intellectual guides is a late great European philosopher who has never set foot in the United States but whose aphorism he aptly quotes: "A civilization progresses from agriculture to paradox" (E. M. Cioran). An absolute "must-have" title for David Rieff collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed in ink-black pen on the title page by David Rieff. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a late-modern classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. Regarded by Joan Didion, California's and Los Angeles' iconic writer, as a classic. One of the most brilliant American writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER DAVID RIEFF TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0671671707.

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