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A COMPANION TO CALIFORNIA HISTORY "Like the best of California, the engaging essays collected in this compendium reveal - and revel in - a history of immense diversity and astonishing possibility. More than a 'companion, ' these dazzling essays offer a friendly 'field guide' to California's past (and an excellent vantage point from which to contemplate its present and future) ."
Stephen Aron, UCLA and Autry Institute for the Study of the American West " ... a useful book. For somebody whose training is in history ..., there is enough substance in each chapter to make it worthwhile ... . Like all Blackwell Companions, this volume is pleasant to use and handle."
Reference Reviews "A rich harvest of the New California History, grown to ripeness and diversity in the garden planted by Carey McWilliams and Kevin Starr."
Mike Davis, University of California, Irvine "In tandem with the emergence of California as a nation-state of global importance, the assessment of California - as place, people, society, culture, and history - has gone into Warp Speed. Nowhere is this more evident than in this brilliant and eminently useful Starship Enterprise of California studies by an elite crew of Next Generation experts."
Kevin Starr, University of Southern California This volume of original essays by leading scholars is an innovative, thorough introduction to the history and culture of California from its inception to the present day. Written by both senior scholars and new voices in the field as well as non-academic subject specialists, the essays range widely across perspectives, including political, social, economic, and environmental history. The volume's unique structure pairs and groups essays that are similar in approach and conception so they work both as individual pieces and also as companions to each other throughout the text. Emerging out of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West, a new research and teaching project associated with the Huntington Library and the University of Southern California, the
Companion to California History is a valuable resource for students and researchers of the history of the Golden State.
List of contents
List of Figures viii
Notes on Contributors ix
Introduction xiii
Part I Introductory Essays 1 1. Beyond Dreams and Disappointments: Defining California through Culture 3
James Quay 2. Rereading, Misreading, and Redeeming the Golden State: Defining California through History 22
D. J. Waldie 3. I Thought California Would Be Different: Defining California through Visual Culture 40
Catherine Gudis 4. At the Crossroads: Defining California through the Global Economy 75
Richard A. Walker Part II Early California 97 5. Junípero Serra across the Generations 99
Steven W. Hackel 6. Alta California, the Pacific, and International Commerce before the Gold Rush 116
David Igler 7. Licit and Illicit Unions: Engendering Mexican Society 127
Rosamaría Toruño Tanghetti 8. Race and Immigration in the Nineteenth Century 145
Omar Valerio-Jiménez Part III Conquest and Statehood 159 9. The 1850s 161
William Deverell 10. Nature and Conquest: After the Deluge of '49 175
Douglas Cazaux Sackman 11. Native Californians in the Nineteenth Century 192
William Bauer, Jr. 12. Transformations in Late Nineteenth-century Rural California 215
David Vaught 13. Transnational Commercial Orbits 230
Robert Chao Romero 14. Reconsidering Conservation 246
Benjamin Heber Johnson 15. Religion in the Early Twentieth Century 262
Darren Dochuk 16. Immigration, Race, and the Progressives 278
Lon Kurashige 17. New Deal, No Deal: The 1930s 292
Rick Wartzman Part IV Modern California 309 18. World War II 311
Arthur Verge 19. Between Liberation and Oppression: Gay Politics and Identity 322
Daniel Hurewitz 20. Making Multiculturalism: Immigration, Race, and the Twentieth Century 339
Kevin Allen Leonard 21. The Long 1950s 358
Shana Bernstein 22. Apportionment Politics, 1920-70 375
Douglas Smith 23. Under the Warm California Sun: Youth Culture in the Postwar Decades 391
Kirse Granat May 24. At the Center of Indian Country 405
Nicolas G. Rosenthal 25. Sexual Revolutions and Sexual Politics 416
Josh Sides 26. A Generation of Leaders, but Not in the Fields: The Legacy of Cesar Chavez 428
Miriam Pawel 27. Hollywood Changes its Script 443
John Horn Part V California Prospects in the Twenty-first Century 453 28. Immigration and Race in the Twenty-first Century 455
Bill Ong Hing 29. Political Prospects in the Twenty-first Century 472
Raphael J. Sonenshein 30. Environmental Prospects in the Twenty-first Century 483
Jon Christensen Index 499
About the author
William Deverell is Professor of History at the University of Southern California and Director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West. He is the author of numerous publications including
Land of Sunshine: The Environmental History of Metropolitan Los Angeles (with Greg Hise, 2005) and
A Companion to Los Angeles (with Greg Hise, 2010).
David Igler is Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine, where he teaches courses in U.S., environmental, and California history. He is the author of
The Great Ocean: Pacific Worlds .from Captain Cook to the Gold Rush (2013), and
Industrial Cowboys: Miller & Lux and the Transformation of the Far West, 1850-1920 (2001).
Summary
This volume of original essays by leading scholars is an innovative, thorough introduction to the history and culture of California from its inception to the present day.
