The Monster Enters: COVID-19, Avian Flu, and the Plagues of Capitalism

(Paperback)

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Description

In his book, The Monster at Our Door, the renowned activist and author Mike Davis warned of a coming global threat of viral catastrophes. Now in this expanded edition of that 2005 book, Davis explains how the problems he warned of remain, and he sets the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of previous disastrous outbreaks, notably the 1918 influenza disaster that killed at least forty million people in three months and the Avian flu of a decade and a half ago. In language both accessible and authoritative, The Monster Enters surveys the scientific and political roots of todays viral apocalypse. In doing so it exposes the key roles of agribusiness and the fast-food industries, abetted by corrupt governments and a capitalist global system careening out of control, in creating the ecological pre-conditions for a plague that has brought much of human existence to a juddering halt.

Reviews

Mike Davis's The Monster at our Door...gives me everything that the news cycle doesn't: a sense of the interconnected forces and the history that set us up for what we're experiencing. -- Molly Dektar * Vogue *
[A] tour de force... Read Mike Davis' new updated book before the monster rebounds and we spiral down again. * Counterpunch *
Provocative and controversial, as always, and a worthy addition to the literature of plague and pestilence. * Kirkus Reviews *

Author Bio

Mike Davis is the author of City of Quartz, Late Victorian Holocausts, Budas Wagon, and Planet of Slums. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the Lannan Literary Award.