Mike Davis, prophetic writer on disaster and social unrest, dies aged 76

Writer of over a dozen books and California's prophet of doom' told the Guardian in August: Despair is useless'

Mike Davis, the California historian who became famous for his prophetic warnings of social unrest and ecological disaster, died on Tuesday after a long struggle with esophageal cancer. He was 76.

In more than a dozen books, Davis exposed the power struggles and betrayals that shaped the landscape and the people of southern California, where he grew up, and also explored how similar power struggles between elites and working class people played out around the world.