Accordingto the united nations, more than one billion people now live in theslums of the cities of the South. In this brilliant and ambitious book,Mike Davis explores the future of a radically unequal and explosivelyunstable urban world. From the sprawling barricadas ofLima to the garbage hills of Manila, urbanization has been disconnectedfrom industrialization, and even from economic growth. Davis portrays a vasthumanity warehoused in shantytowns and exiled from the formal worldeconomy. He argues that the rise of this informal urban proletariat isa wholly unforeseen development, and asks whether the great slums, as a terrified Victorian middle class onceimagined, are volcanoes waiting to erupt.