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Full 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 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.
Praise for Americans and the California Dream:
"Monumental." --The Atlantic
"Conceived in dazzling ambition and masterfully executed. It is, in sum, an achievement made even more remarkable by the fact that it is wonderfully readable." -- Los Angeles Times
"An engaging, dazzling account of the emerging American Century." --San Francisco Chronicle
Contents
Preface ; Part I: Suburban Assumptions ; Ch 1: San Fernando: Homes and Happiness in Residential Subdivisions ; Ch 2: Designs for the Good Life: Modernism, Tiki, Ranch ; Part II: Urban Perspectives ; Ch 3: Urban Expectations: San Diego Leverages Itself into Big-City Status ; Ch 4: Baghdad by the Bay: Herb Caen's San Francisco ; Ch 5: The Cardinal, the Chief, Walter O'Malley, and Buff Chandler: Redefining the City of Angels ; Ch 6: Downsides and Dividends: Los Angeles as Supercity ; Part III: Politics and Public Works ; Ch 7: Warren, Nixon, Knight, and Knowland: The Demise of Republican Centrism ; Ch 8: Cold War Campus: The University of California and Other Secret Places ; Ch 9: Freeways to the Future: An Epic Construction on Behalf of the Automobile ; Ch 10: Mare Nostrum: The State Water Project ; Part IV: Art and Life ; Ch 11: Provincials, Baghdader, and Beats: Literary San Francisco in the 1950s ; Ch 12: Big Sur: The Search for Alternative Value ; Ch 13: The Silent Generation: Coming of Age on the Coast of Dreams ; Ch 14: Brubeck! Jazz Goes to College ; Part Five: Dissenting Opinions ; Ch 15: Largest State in the Nation: A Rebellion against Growth and the Destruction of the Environment ; Ch 16: People of Color: The Beginning of the End for Jim Crow California ; Ch 17: Cool, Not Cool: Headlines and Transitions ; Notes ; Bibliographic Essay
