Golden dreams: California in an age of abundance, 1950-1963

With Golden Dreams, Starr (Univ. of Southern California) has completed eight volumes of his series on the history of California (e.g., Embattled Dreams, CH, Jan'03, 40-2996; The Dream Endures, CH, Sep'97, 35-0482; Endangered Dreams, CH, May'96, 33-5325). This is volume seven. Unlike volume eight (Coast of Dreams, CH, May'05, 42-5487), issued out of sequence by another publisher and covering the 1990s and the beginning of this century, here Starr successfully resumes and sustains the narrative drive and coherence that typifies the earlier volumes. The period of this book, the 1950s, enables Starr to persuasively weave a tale of how with post-WW II economic abundance, "The dreams of California ... were the dreams of the nation, and vice versa." Featured in this account are developments in suburbs; the cities of San Diego, San Francisco, and Los Angeles; state politics, freeways, water projects, and higher education; the Beats, Big Sur bohemians, the first wave of boomers, and cool jazz; and environmental and civil rights movements. Grand narratives unavoidably make the past tidier than it actually was. Still, the understanding possible through a carefully constructed broad view is, in this case, worth the simplification. Summing Up: Recommended. All collections on California and the West. D. F. Anderson Northwestern College (IA)

This volume concludes Starr's unprecedented seven-volume history of a single American state. While out of chronological order (Starr covered the period 1990-2003 in Coast of Dreams) and often ranging far beyond the book's stated dates, this final volume is of the same high quality as the previous ones: spirited in style, comprehensive and long. Starr covers a broad range of subjects: demography, water, freeways, politics, culture, the state's major cities, race relations. As in all other volumes, he hangs his story on sketches of many of California's often larger-than-life individuals, among them Buffy Chandler, Cardinal McIntyre, Pat Brown, Dave Brubeck, Clark Kerr, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Herb Caen. But too often biography substitutes for analysis. Letting others speak for him, Starr rarely lets an authorial voice shine through or a critical stance intrude. The result is wonderfully readable descriptive history, but not a history that leaves readers with a fresh take on the Golden State as a whole. That's a pity, for no one knows more about California than Starr. We could have used at least his concluding thoughts on the state's past and future. 30 b&w photos. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

This volume concludes Starr's unprecedented seven-volume history of a single American state. While out of chronological order (Starr covered the period 1990–2003 in Coast of Dreams) and often ranging far beyond the book's stated dates, this final volume is of the same high quality as the previous ones: spirited in style, comprehensive and long. Starr covers a broad range of subjects: demography, water, freeways, politics, culture, the state's major cities, race relations. As in all other volumes, he hangs his story on sketches of many of California's often larger-than-life individuals, among them Buffy Chandler, Cardinal McIntyre, Pat Brown, Dave Brubeck, Clark Kerr, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Herb Caen. But too often biography substitutes for analysis. Letting others speak for him, Starr rarely lets an authorial voice shine through or a critical stance intrude. The result is wonderfully readable descriptive history, but not a history that leaves readers with a fresh take on the Golden State as a whole. That's a pity, for no one knows more about California than Starr. We could have used at least his concluding thoughts on the state's past and future. 30 b&w photos. (July)