Background
Kevin Starr was born in San Francisco, California, and attended the University of San Francisco, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1962.
(In this extraordinary book, Kevin Starr–widely acknowledg...)
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.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679412883/?tag=2022091-20
(The sixth volume in one of the great ongoing works of Ame...)
The sixth volume in one of the great ongoing works of American cultural history--Kevin Starr's monumental Americans and the California Dream--Embattled Dreams is a peerless work of cultural history following California in the years surrounding World War II. During the 1940s California ascended to a new, more powerful role in the nation. Starr describes the vast expansion of the war industry and California's role as the "arsenal of democracy" (especially the significant part women played in the aviation industry). He examines the politics of the state: Earl Warren as the dominant political figure, the anti-Communist movement and "red baiting," and the early career of Richard Nixon. He also looks at culture, ranging from Hollywood to the counterculture, to film noir and detective stories. And he illuminates the harassment of Japanese immigrants and the shameful treatment of other minorities, especially Hispanics and blacks. In Embattled Dreams, Starr again provides a spellbinding account of the Golden State, narrating California's transformation from a regional power to a dominant economic, social, and cultural force. "With a novelist's eye for the telling detail, and a historian's grasp of the sweep of grand events.... Starr's got it all down.... I read the book with absorbed admiration."--Herman Wouk, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Caine Mutiny and The Winds of War "The scope of Starr's scholarship is breathtaking."--Atlantic Monthly "A magnificent accomplishment."--Los Angeles Times Book Review "Brilliant and epic social and cultural history."--Business Week "Ebullient, nuanced, interdisciplinary history of the grandest kind."--San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195168976/?tag=2022091-20
(California has always been our Shangri-la–the promised la...)
California has always been our Shangri-la–the promised land of countless pilgrims in search of the American Dream. Now the Golden State’s premier historian, Kevin Starr, distills the entire sweep of California’s history into one splendid volume. From the age of exploration to the age of Arnold, this is the story of a place at once quintessentially American and utterly unique. Arguing that America’s most populous state has always been blessed with both spectacular natural beauty and astonishing human diversity, Starr unfolds a rapid-fire epic of discovery, innovation, catastrophe, and triumph. For generations, California’s native peoples basked in the abundance of a climate and topography eminently suited to human habitation. By the time the Spanish arrived in the early sixteenth century, there were scores of autonomous tribes were thriving in the region. Though conquest was rapid, nearly two centuries passed before Spain exerted control over upper California through the chain of missions that stand to this day. The discovery of gold in January 1848 changed everything. With population increasing exponentially as get-rich-quick dreamers converged from all over the world, California reinvented itself overnight. Starr deftly traces the successive waves of innovation and calamity that have broken over the state since then–the incredible wealth of the Big Four railroad tycoons and the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906; the emergence of Hollywood as the world’s entertainment capital and of Silicon Valley as the center of high-tech research and development; the heroic irrigation and transportation projects that have altered the face of the region; the role of labor, both organized and migrant, in key industries from agriculture to aerospace. Kevin Starr has devoted his career to the history of his beloved state, but he has never lost his sense of wonder over California’s sheer abundance and peerless variety. This one-volume distillation of a lifetime’s work gathers together everything that is most important, most fascinating, and most revealing about our greatest state. From the Hardcover edition.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081297753X/?tag=2022091-20
(Kevin Starr is the foremost chronicler of the California ...)
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 diverting)" (The New York Times Book Review) and "rich in details and alive with interesting, and sometimes incredible people" (Los Angeles Times). 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 (who built the main aquaducts to Los Angeles), and George Chaffey (who diverted the Colorado River, transforming desert into the lush Imperial Valley) brought life-supporting water to the arid South. He examines the discovery of oil, the boosters and land developers, the evangelists (such as Bob Shuler, the Methodist Savanarola of Los Angeles, and Aimee Semple McPherson), 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.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/019507260X/?tag=2022091-20
Kevin Starr was born in San Francisco, California, and attended the University of San Francisco, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1962.
Bachelor, University San Francisco, 1962. Master of Arts, Harvard University, 1965. Doctor of Philosophy, Harvard University, 1969.
Master of Library Science, University California, Berkeley, 1974. Postgraduate, Church Division School Pacific, Berkeley, 1984.
After graduation he served for two years as a lieutenant in a tank battalion in Germany (the 68th Armored Brigade of the United States Army, in what was then West Germany). He taught American Literature until 1973, and then moved to California where he has lived since 1974. He received a Masters in Library Science from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1974 while he was San Francisco City Librarian.
From 1974 to 1989 he was professor or visiting lecturer at numerous California universities, including University of California Berkeley, University of California Davis, University of California Riverside, Santa Clara University, the University of San Francisco, and Stanford University.
In 1989 Starr became Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Southern California, and was promoted to University Professor of History in 1998. Starr sometimes teaches at the University of Southern California State Capital Center in Sacramento, California.
Starr served as California State Librarian from 1994 to April 1, 2004, when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger named him State Librarian Emeritus. Starr is the author of the ongoing multi-volume history of California collectively entitled "Americans and the California Dream".
The first volume in the series, "Americans and the California Dream, 1850-1915" was published in 1973.
In November 2006 he was awarded a National Humanities Meda On July 7, 2010, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver announced that Starr would be a 2010 inductee of the California Hall of Fame. The induction ceremony was held on December 14, 2010 at The California Museum.
He was presented with The Robert Kirsch Award by the Los Angeles Times as part of the 2012 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes.
Composer John Adams was inspired by the "Dream" series of books to write the piece City Noir in 2009.
(The sixth volume in one of the great ongoing works of Ame...)
(In this extraordinary book, Kevin Starr–widely acknowledg...)
(Kevin Starr is the foremost chronicler of the California ...)
(California has always been our Shangri-la–the promised la...)
Executive aide to mayor San Francisco, 1973. Board trustees American Issues Forum, 1975-1976, California History Society, since 1992. Co-chairman sister city committee, San Francisco and Sydney, Australia, 1981-1986.
Advisor Junior League San Francisco, 1982-1984. Canidate San Francisco Board Supervisors, 1984. Councilor American Antiquarian Society, since 1996.
Member California Council Humanities, since 1996. Regent Cathedral St. Mary Assumption, San Francisco, since 1996. Lieutenant German Army, 1962-1964.
Member of California Historical Society, California Council Humanities, American Antiquarian Society.
Married Sheila Gordon, June 10, 1963. Children: Marian, Jessica.