Product Description

California has always been our Shangri-la–the promised land of countless pilgrims in search of the American Dream. Now the Golden State’s premier historian, Kevin Starr, distills the entire sweep of California’s history into one splendid volume. From the age of exploration to the age of Arnold, this is the story of a place at once quintessentially American and utterly unique.

Arguing that America’s most populous state has always been blessed with both spectacular natural beauty and astonishing human diversity, Starr unfolds a rapid-fire epic of discovery, innovation, catastrophe, and triumph.

For generations, California’s native peoples basked in the abundance of a climate and topography eminently suited to human habitation. By the time the Spanish arrived in the early sixteenth century, there were scores of autonomous tribes were thriving in the region. Though conquest was rapid, nearly two centuries passed before Spain exerted control over upper California through the chain of missions that stand to this day.

The discovery of gold in January 1848 changed everything. With population increasing exponentially as get-rich-quick dreamers converged from all over the world, California reinvented itself overnight. Starr deftly traces the successive waves of innovation and calamity that have broken over the state since then–the incredible wealth of the Big Four railroad tycoons and the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906; the emergence of Hollywood as the world’s entertainment capital and of Silicon Valley as the center of high-tech research and development; the heroic irrigation and transportation projects that have altered the face of the region; the role of labor, both organized and migrant, in key industries from agriculture to aerospace.

Kevin Starr has devoted his career to the history of his beloved state, but he has never lost his sense of wonder over California’s sheer abundance and peerless variety. This one-volume distillation of a lifetime’s work gathers together everything that is most important, most fascinating, and most revealing about our greatest state.


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29768 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-13
• Released on: 2007-03-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780812977530
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Booklist
In 2004, California had a population of 36 million and the fifth-largest economy in the world. Starr, USC professor and former California state librarian, has justification for referring to his state as "this nation state, this world commonwealth." His distillation of his previously written seven-volume series, California and the American Dream, is a single-volume tour de force that is superbly researched and beautifully written. This straight, chronological history opens with a fascinating survey of the geology, climate, flora, and fauna of the region, and then the author provides interesting insights into the achievements and failings of Spanish and Mexican governance, while he pays particular attention to the sad fate of California's indigenous peoples. Most of the book covers the period of American supremacy, and Starr's treatment of topics such as the gold rush, the growth of high-tech industries, and the emergence of California as the center of the motion-picture industry is handled with great aplomb. For both general readers and those with a particular interest in regional history, this is an informative and enjoyable reading experience. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“Kevin Starr is one of California’s greatest historians, and California: A History is an invaluable contribution to our state's record and lore.”
–Maria Shriver, First Lady of California

“From Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Donner Party to the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Kevin Starr captures the fullness of California history in one sweeping and masterful narrative. Starr is not only the Golden State’s greatest living chronicler, he is also one of its greatest treasures.”
–Gregory Rodríguez, senior fellow, New America Foundation, and contributing editor, Los Angeles Times

“I am honored to recommend California: A History, this perfect distillation of Kevin Starr’s life’s work. He is California’s most devoted lover and most passionate advocate, our patron saint. He transforms an already fascinating tale and imbues it with ineffable magic and grace.”
–Carolyn See, author of Making a Literary Life

“There is no more knowledgeable or insightful historian of the California dream than Kevin Starr.”
–Richard Rodríguez


“A magisterially authoritative survey of the movements–geological, political, scientific, artistic, and sociological–that have shaped California into the unique state it is today. This engrossing warts-and-all saga is told with a verve and panache that sweep the reader along.”
–Michael York


From the Hardcover edition.

Review
“Kevin Starr is one of California’s greatest historians, and California: A History is an invaluable contribution to our state's record and lore.”
–Maria Shriver, First Lady of California

“From Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Donner Party to the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Kevin Starr captures the fullness of California history in one sweeping and masterful narrative. Starr is not only the Golden State’s greatest living chronicler, he is also one of its greatest treasures.”
–Gregory Rodríguez, senior fellow, New America Foundation, and contributing editor, Los Angeles Times

“I am honored to recommend California: A History, this perfect distillation of Kevin Starr’s life’s work. He is California’s most devoted lover and most passionate advocate, our patron saint. He transforms an already fascinating tale and imbues it with ineffable magic and grace.”
–Carolyn See, author of Making a Literary Life

“There is no more knowledgeable or insightful historian of the California dream than Kevin Starr.”
–Richard Rodríguez


“A magisterially authoritative survey of the movements–geological, political, scientific, artistic, and sociological–that have shaped California into the unique state it is today. This engrossing warts-and-all saga is told with a verve and panache that sweep the reader along.”
–Michael York


From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews

Perahps the Best Single Volume History of the State
Just the name California brings up images in our minds. They may be of the big Hollywood sign, the Watts riots, the gigantic redwood trees, the pacific ocean, the images run on and on. In this book, Mr. Starr gives a history beginnning with the first mention of the name in a 1510 book where it was stated that California was an island.

From there he has written perhaps the best single volume history of the state yet written. He has pictured California with all its greatness, and with its problems. He talks about the beauty, the climate, the life that California provides. He also mentions the soaring housing prices, grid-locked freeways, poor state government and more. It's a fair look at the state as it exists today and as it was in the past.

Mr. Starr is a professor at USC and for ten years was the state librarian. He has written many time of California, this is the distillation of a lifetime of work.

California's Biggest Starr
Kevin Starr has spent the last quarter of a century chronicling the history of the State of California in 7 thick and comprehensive volumes. I must confess that sadly I've read none of them. When I found out that Starr would be doing a history of California for the Modern Library Chronicles I was overjoyed and California: A History did not disappoint. Starr starts at the point that Europeans first viewed California and takes the reader on a whirlwind history that ends in today's California with the rule of the Governator. Chapters are a combination of chronological and topical. I wish I could give the book perfect marks for accuracy, but I found mistakes in the Chapter 10 [O Brave New World!] which is the one chapter I know enough about to evaluate in detail. On page 258, Starr gets the telescopes on Mt. Wilson fouled up [the "60-inch reflector telescope" is most likely the Snow Solar Telescope (which George Hale did already have and moved to Mt. Wilson), the "observatory with a 60-inch reflector lens" is the 60-inch telescope built in 1908 with a 60-inch MIRROR, and the "100-inch lens" is the 100-inch MIRROR of the most famous telescope on Mt. Wilson, the Hooker Telescope]. This mix up in details makes me wonder about what else the proof readers missed, but aside from that I enjoyed the book immensely.

lots of facts, no story

A history of California, from the founding years through to Gov. Schwarzenegger, was always an ambitious undertaking, one fraught with difficulties, starting with how to approach it. A large, diverse state with a complex history, there are only a few options: compile an encyclopedia, focus on a few defining events, or create lists. Unfortunately, Starr takes the last approach, keeping the book to a short 350 pages, but filling those pages with one or two sentences on every event and every major figure in California history.

Unfortunately, while comprehensive, the disjointed style and lack of detail on any topic make for painful reading. Nearly every paragraph deserves its own book or at least its own chapter. The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 rates 3 paragraphs.

Here's one example taken at semi-random: "The previous evening, a drunken miner had tried to break into Josefa's cabin, where she was living with her common-law husband, also a Mexican. Upbraided by Josefa the next day for his conduce, the miner called her a whore. Enraged, she stabbed him to death."

This was the most interesting passage on the page I opened at random, but it certainly needs to be its own story. As a novel or movie, this event could succeed in illustrating life during that period in California history, but as half a paragraph, it's just more event in a long list of things that happened.

When Starr turns to arts and literature, the effect is even worse, pages packed with names of artists and writers. Starr seemed to feel the need to include every writer who ever even visited San Francisco.

Further, parentheticals in nearly every sentence and a reliance on passive voice make the book feel as if it was dictated by a PBS narrator. Though cleared of footnotes and written in large text on small pages to appeal to a general audience, Starr is clearly a historian rather than a writer. Possibly this would have been a more interesting book had it been written by a journalist or novelist rather than an academic, though I expect that a journalist or novelist would realized that this undertaking was impossible and would instead have focused on one particular person or event.

In the end, I felt that I learned more about California history by reading a book focused on a particular theme - for example, Dennis McDougal's Privileged Son, which in the process of telling the history of the LA Times through multiple generations of the founding Chandler family, goes a good job telling the history of Los Angeles itself.

Overall, this book is far too dry to recommend it to someone looking for an overview of California history, and too cursory for anyone looking to learn anything about one particular time or place.