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

Book Cover
Average Rating
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Publication Date
2009.
Language
English

Description

A narrative tour de force that combines wide-ranging scholarship with captivating prose, Kevin Starr's acclaimed multi-volume Americans and the California Dream is an unparalleled work of cultural history. In this volume, Starr covers the crucial postwar period--1950 to 1963--when the California we know today first burst into prominence.Starr brilliantly illuminates the dominant economic, social, and cultural forces in California in these pivotal years. In a powerful blend of telling events, colorful personalities, and insightful analyses, Starr examines such issues as the overnight creation of the postwar California suburb, the rise of Los Angeles as Super City, the reluctant emergence of San Diego as one of the largest cities in the nation, and the decline of political centrism. He explores the Silent Generation and the emergent Boomer youth cult, the Beats and the Hollywood "Rat Pack," the pervasive influence of Zen Buddhism and other Asian traditions in art and design, the rise of the University of California and the emergence of California itself as a utopia of higher education, the cooling of West Coast jazz, freeway and water projects of heroic magnitude, outdoor life and the beginnings of the environmental movement. More broadly, he shows how California not only became the most populous state in the Union, but in fact evolved into a mega-state en route to becoming the global commonwealth it is today.Golden Dreams continues an epic series that has been widely recognized for its signal contribution to the history of American culture in California. It is a book that transcends its stated subject to offer a wealth of insight into the growth of the Sun Belt and the West and indeed the dramatic transformation of America itself in these pivotal years following the Second World War.

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ISBN
9780195153774

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Published Reviews

Choice Review

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)

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
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Publisher's Weekly Review

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

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
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Publishers Weekly Reviews

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)

[Page 43]. Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
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