Material Dreams
Southern California through the 1920s
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Oxford University Press
Published:2nd Jan '92
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£33.99(9780195044874)
The third of Kevin Starr's monumental studies of the origins and development of the California dream covers the decade, which perhaps glittered the most brightly in the history of the Golden State - the 1920s. This was the era of colourful, larger-than-life individuals - from movie stars to evangelists to grandiose town planners; the era of Valentino, as well as that of William Ellsworth Smyth, tireless crusader for the irrigation of the desert. It was also the period in which the characteristics of Los Angeles' vital culture were established.
`Material Dreams is a splendid achievement: impressively researched, expertly argued and nicely varied ... (Starr) has taken a sprawling, recalcitrant subject, at once encrusted with cliche and dogged by obscurity, and made it vivid and comprehensible.' Boston Sunday Globe
`Kevin Starr has written an engaging, eccentric history of Southern California in the '20s ... It is richly researched, informative, fun to read and the writing is bright (with substance, pace and vigor).' Los Angeles Times
ISBN: 9780195072600
Dimensions: 156mm x 228mm x 30mm
Weight: 739g
496 pages