City of Industry

VICTOR VALLE, a professor of ethnic studies at California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, is a former Los Angeles Times investigative reporter, a Pulitzer Prize winner, a coauthor of Latino Metropolis, and, most recently, a Radcliffe Fellow.

"The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Victor Valle is the pit bull of Los Angeles writers. In the mid-1980s he sank his teeth into a story about corruption in the strange city-state of Industry, and he never let go. Now, after twenty years of relentless sleuthing, he tells a tale of epic greed that began in the dusty hills east of Los Angeles but now engrosses the very centers of power in Southern California's Pacific Rim economy. As a noirish revelation of power and secret history of L.A., this is a stunning non-fiction sequel to Robert Towne's Chinatown." - Mike Davis (author of City of Quartz) "A wonderful, muckraking account of arrogance and the pursuit of economic power. Highly recommended." (Choice) "This important book should rightly take its place alongside such works as Mike Davis's City of Quartz and Ecology of Fear, Gray Brechin's Imperial San Francisco, and Donald Worster's Rivers of Empire on the shelf of standard noir literature on California's development. Reflecting Victor Valle's prize-winning talents as an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times, much of the narrative of City of Industry reads as well as a Dashiell Hammett novel." - Michael R. Adamson (Pacific Historical Review) "The history of the tale of political intrigue, manipulation of state and local laws, monopolistic business practices, and outright bribery is revealed in City of Industry. Like a Progressive Era muckraker, Valle digs deeply into his evidence to dissect corruption on one level and raise a consciousness of what he sees as similar behavior on a much larger scale." (Southern California Quarterly) "The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Victor Valle is the pit bull of Los Angeles writers. In the mid-1980s he sank his teeth into a story about corruption in the strange city-state of Industry, and he never let go. Now, after twenty years of relentless sleuthing, he tells a tale of epic greed that began in the dusty hills east of Los Angeles but now engrosses the very centers of power in Southern California's Pacific Rim economy. As a noirish revelation of power and secret history of L.A., this is a stunning non-fiction sequel to Robert Towne's Chinatown." - Mike Davis (author of City of Quartz) "A wonderful, muckraking account of arrogance and the pursuit of economic power. Highly recommended." (Choice) "This important book should rightly take its place alongside such works as Mike Davis's City of Quartz and Ecology of Fear, Gray Brechin's Imperial San Francisco, and Donald Worster's Rivers of Empire on the shelf of standard noir literature on California's development. Reflecting Victor Valle's prize-winning talents as an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times, much of the narrative of City of Industry reads as well as a Dashiell Hammett novel." - Michael R. Adamson (Pacific Historical Review) "The history of the tale of political intrigue, manipulation of state and local laws, monopolistic business practices, and outright bribery is revealed in City of Industry. Like a Progressive Era muckraker, Valle digs deeply into his evidence to dissect corruption on one level and raise a consciousness of what he sees as similar behavior on a much larger scale." (Southern California Quarterly)

• AchnowledgmentsIntroductionHis Theater of ShameA Legacy of Debt, Rails, and NoosesIn the School of PowerGraduation Day"We don't like the dirty deal"Triangulating the ThroneConstructing their LadderDefending their LadderThe Other ChinatownsJim's Busy PeriodAssembling Jim's PortraitJim's Hot Vegas TipA Punishing GazePerforming His WhitenessBurying the BodyEpilogueIndex