Books like Inventing the Dream by Kevin Starr

Presents the geography, history, people, economy, and culture of the Golden State. Each chapter includes a summary, words for study, and questions designed for review, thought, and discussion.

Kevin Starr surveys California from 1990 to 2003, charting gang violence in Los Angeles, the rise and fall of Silicon Valley, the Northridge earthquake, and the political upheavals that reshaped the state.

Kevin Starr traces how California’s 1930s "good life"—through film, literature, leisure, and architecture—shaped American culture and society, spotlighting Hollywood’s golden age, European refugees, and the flourishing arts of San Francisco.

Prophesying through water : hydraulic visions and historical metaphors -- Imperial ironies : the dreams and realities of social irrigation -- Aqueduct cities : foundations of urban empire -- From Oz to Oildorado : the rise of Los Angeles in the 1920s -- Boosting Babylon : planning, development, and ballyhoo in jazz-age Los Angeles -- The people of the city : oligarchs, babbitts, and folks -- USC, electricity, music, and cops : the emergence of institutional Los Angeles -- Designs for living : architecture in southern California, from the Bradbury Building to the Watts Towers -- Anacapa and Arcadia : the Santa Barbara heritage -- Castles in Spain : the Santa Barbara alternative -- Opinion and the aristocracy of art : the search for common ground in emergent Los Angeles -- The book triumphant : bibliophilia and Bohemia in greater Los Angeles -- On the blue train through Dijon : Pasadena begins its literary career -- Material dreams (from contents)