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.
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