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Material Dreams: Southern California Through the 1920s

4/5 ( ratings)

Kevin Starr is the foremost chronicler of the California dream and indeed one of the finest narrative historians writing today on any subject. The first two installments of his monumental cultural history, Americans and the California Dream, have been hailed as mature, well-proportioned and marvelously diverse and rich in details and alive with interesting, and sometimes incredible people . Now, in Material Dreams, Starr turns to one of the most vibrant decades in the Golden State's history, the 1920s, when some two million Americans migrated to California, the vast majority settling in or around Los Angeles.
In a lively and eminently readable narrative, Starr reveals how Los Angeles arose almost defiantly on a site lacking many of the advantages required for urban development, creating itself out of sheer will, the Great Gatsby of American cities. He describes how William Ellsworth Smyth, the Peter the Hermit of the Irrigation Crusade, the self-educated, Irish engineer William Mulholland , and George Chaffey brought life-supporting water to the arid South. He examines the discovery of oil, the boosters and land developers, the evangelists , and countless other colorful figures of the period. There are also fascinating sections on the city's architecture the impact of the automobile on city planning, the Hollywood film community, the L.A. literati, and much more.
By the end of the decade, Los Angeles had tripled in population and become the fifth largest city in the nation. In Material Dreams, Starr captures this explosive growth in a narrative tour de force that combines wide-ranging scholarship with captivating prose.

Language: English

Pages: 496

Format: Paperback

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Release: October 17, 1991

ISBN: 019507260X

ISBN 13: 9780195072600

Material Dreams: Southern California Through the 1920s

4/5 ( ratings)

Kevin Starr is the foremost chronicler of the California dream and indeed one of the finest narrative historians writing today on any subject. The first two installments of his monumental cultural history, Americans and the California Dream, have been hailed as mature, well-proportioned and marvelously diverse and rich in details and alive with interesting, and sometimes incredible people . Now, in Material Dreams, Starr turns to one of the most vibrant decades in the Golden State's history, the 1920s, when some two million Americans migrated to California, the vast majority settling in or around Los Angeles.
In a lively and eminently readable narrative, Starr reveals how Los Angeles arose almost defiantly on a site lacking many of the advantages required for urban development, creating itself out of sheer will, the Great Gatsby of American cities. He describes how William Ellsworth Smyth, the Peter the Hermit of the Irrigation Crusade, the self-educated, Irish engineer William Mulholland , and George Chaffey brought life-supporting water to the arid South. He examines the discovery of oil, the boosters and land developers, the evangelists , and countless other colorful figures of the period. There are also fascinating sections on the city's architecture the impact of the automobile on city planning, the Hollywood film community, the L.A. literati, and much more.
By the end of the decade, Los Angeles had tripled in population and become the fifth largest city in the nation. In Material Dreams, Starr captures this explosive growth in a narrative tour de force that combines wide-ranging scholarship with captivating prose.

Language: English

Pages: 496

Format: Paperback

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Release: October 17, 1991

ISBN: 019507260X

ISBN 13: 9780195072600

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