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Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950-1963
Contributor(s): Starr, Kevin (Author)
ISBN: 0199832498     ISBN-13: 9780199832491
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
OUR PRICE:   $24.29  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: September 2011
Qty:
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- History | United States - State & Local - West (ak, Ca, Co, Hi, Id, Mt, Nv, Ut, Wy)
- History | United States - 20th Century
Dewey: 979.405
LCCN: 2012376050
Series: Americans and the California Dream
Physical Information: 1.6" H x 5.9" W x 9.1" (1.70 lbs) 576 pages
Themes:
- Chronological Period - 1950's
- Chronological Period - 1960's
- Geographic Orientation - California
- Chronological Period - 20th Century
- Cultural Region - Western U.S.
- Cultural Region - West Coast
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher 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.