Coast of Dreams: A History of Contemporary California - Hardcover

Starr, Kevin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0713998466 ISBN 13: 9780713998467

Publisher: Allen Lane, 2005

Synopsis

Coast of Dreams is an astonishingly rich, thoughtful, entertaining and horrifying account of one of the most mesmerising places on earth. Kevin Starr's marvellous new book allows its readers both to revel in the Californian oddness but also to see the magic that has drawn in millions of people like bodybuilder-turned actor-turned-Govenor Schwarzenegger. The success that has made California into one of the world's biggest economies and its great generator of culture and ideas has not been cost free however and the picture that emerges from Coast of Dreams is a troubled one. Contemporary Californians are caught in the middle of a period of transformation where the state struggles to understand the diversity of its people, the confusions of its values and customs and the loss of one California and the ambiguous imposition of a new and uncharted identity.

About this title

Review:

Vivid, precise, and astute. . . . Starr's cultural range has always been broad and his grasp sure. Most important, he's able to put tastes and ways of life in historical context. Los Angeles Times Book Review
Kevin Starr is nothing short of the John Muir of our times. . . . [He] is utterly fascinated by California and how it has evolved. Los Angeles Times
Starr brings his magnificent, multivolume series Americans and the California Dream, the product of a quarter-century of work up to the present. An unfailingly interesting, highly readable contribution to Starr's grand series. Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Extraordinary. . . . Sweeping, deeply personal and insightful Tucson Gazette
"

"Vivid, precise, and astute. . . . Starr's cultural range has always been broad and his grasp sure. Most important, he's able to put tastes and ways of life in historical context."-Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Kevin Starr is nothing short of the John Muir of our times. . . . [He] is utterly fascinated by California and how it has evolved." -Los Angeles Times
"Starr brings his magnificent, multivolume series Americans and the California Dream, the product of a quarter-century of work up to the present. An unfailingly interesting, highly readable contribution to Starr's grand series." -Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Extraordinary. . . . Sweeping, deeply personal and insightful"-Tucson Gazette


-Vivid, precise, and astute. . . . Starr's cultural range has always been broad and his grasp sure. Most important, he's able to put tastes and ways of life in historical context.--Los Angeles Times Book Review
-Kevin Starr is nothing short of the John Muir of our times. . . . [He] is utterly fascinated by California and how it has evolved.- -Los Angeles Times
-Starr brings his magnificent, multivolume series Americans and the California Dream, the product of a quarter-century of work up to the present. An unfailingly interesting, highly readable contribution to Starr's grand series.- -Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
-Extraordinary. . . . Sweeping, deeply personal and insightful--Tucson Gazette

About the Author:

Kevin Starr is California's foremost historian and the author of a series of acclaimed books on the state. He is University Professor of History at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and lives in San Francisco.

About this edition

• Publisher: Allen Lane
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0713998466
• ISBN 13: 9780713998467
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 784