Kevin Starr

Coast of Dreams (eBook, ePUB)

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

In this extraordinary book, Kevin Starr-widely acknowledged as the premier historian of California, the scope of whose scholarship the Atlantic Monthly has called "breathtaking”-probes the possible collapse of the California dream in the years 1990—2003. In a series of compelling chapters, Coast of Dreams moves through a variety of topics that show the California of the last decade, when the state was sometimes stumbling, sometimes humbled, but, more often, flourishing with its usual panache. From gang violence in Los Angeles to the spectacular rise-and equally spectacular fall-of Silicon Valley, from the Northridge earthquake to the recall of Governor Gray Davis, Starr ranges over myriad facts, anecdotes, news stories, personal impressions, and analyses to explore a time of unprecedented upheaval in California. Coast of Dreams describes an exceptional diversity of people, cultures, and values; an economy that mirrors the economic state of the nation; a battlefield where industry and the necessities of infrastructure collide with the inherent demands of a unique and stunning natural environment. It explores California politics (including Arnold Schwarzenegger's election in the 2003 recall), the multifaceted business landscape, and controversial icons such as O. J. Simpson. "Historians of the future,” Starr writes, "will be able to see with more certainty whether or not the period 1990-2003 was not only the end of one California but the beginning of another”; in the meantime, he gives a picture of the place and time in a book at once sweeping and riveting in its details, deeply informed, engagingly personal, and altogether fascinating.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Seitenzahl: 800
• Erscheinungstermin: 22. Juni 2011
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780307795267
• Artikelnr.: 39248904

Autorenporträt

Kevin Starr is University Professor of History at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. From 1994 to 2004, he served as the state librarian for California. His writing has won a Guggenheim Fellowship and gold and silver medals from the Commonwealth Club of California. He divides his time between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Inhaltsangabe

Preface: California on the Edge
PART I: Coast of Dreams
Surf’s Up!
Zen California
Mind Games
Bon Appétit
Dumbing Down
Ocean Park
Frank’s Kids
PART II: Catastrophe
Earthquake, Fire, and Flood
Scene of the Crime
Reefer Madness
Killing Time
Homeboys
Gangbusters
Doing Time
A Lost Generation
Send In the Marines
PART III: Diversity
Viva Mexico!
Asian Attitudes
Multiple Identities
PART IV: Wedge Issues
Backlash
Illegals
Rising Tensions
Wedge Issues
Affirmative Action
Hasta la Vista!
Accommodations
PART V: Turnaround
For the Good Times
Free Fall
Turnaround
Immigrants to the Rescue
Swords into Ploughshares
The Comeback Kid
Valley Talk
Genes to Work
Foreign Trade
The Rim
NAFTA
PART VI: Cities, Suburbs, and Other Places
How Should We Live?
Holy Land or Plains of Id? Southern California and Metro Sacramento
Staying Time: Santa Barbara and Palm Springs
The Upper Left: Berkeley, Santa Monica,
West Hollywood
Booming Places: Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and San Diego
Counties
Tough Love: Jerry Brown’s Oakland
Downtown: The Reurbanization of San Jose
Play Ball!: San Diego in the Major Leagues
PART VII: A Tale of Two Cities: Los Angeles and San Francisco
People
Payday
Poor
Politics
Place
Talk of the Town
PART VIII: Growth and the Environment
Heartland
Waterworld
Endangered Species
North Coast Redwoods and Other Trees
Going Green
Open Space
Fixed Rail
PART IX: Back on the Edge
Bill and Barbra
Dot-Com Debacle
Report Card
The Boys from Texas
9/11
Epilogue Déjà Vu All Over Again
Acknowledgments
Notes
Sources
Index