Embattled Dreams: California in War and Peace, 1940-1950The 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 |
Contents
For nearly forty years white California had been harassing | |
Why should a fashion among MexicanAmerican teenagers | |
Photographs Section | |
The more female became its workforce the more aviation | |
Homecoming had its anxieties and adjustments as well as | |
While Earl Warren was steering California through the post | |
Photographs Section | |
As the 40th Division of the California National Guard | |
Notes | |
Acknowledgments | |
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Common terms and phrases
AfricanAmerican American Angeles County anti antiJapanese attorney aviation Beach Berkeley Bugsy Siegel campaign career Carey McWilliams Chronicle Club command Committee Communist Communist Party Culbert Olson dance defense Democratic Dietrich Douglas Earl Warren February film governor high school Hollywood Hollywood Canteen Hollywood Ten Honey Bear Hope Hotel House hundred Japan Japanese JapaneseAmericans John June Kaiser later Lieutenant living Lockheed Los Angeles County Mann Marine Marlene Dietrich McWilliams Mexican MexicanAmerican military million naval Navy Nixon Oakland Olson Oppenheimer pachuco Patton Pearl Harbor photographs played police political postwar President Raymond Chandler regents Republican returning Richard Nixon Robert Roosevelt Sacramento sailors Samish San Diego San Francisco Santa Barbara Senator servicemen ships shipyards Siegel social Southern California stars studios Tenney thousand UCLA UnAmerican Activities Union United University veterans Voorhis wartime women workers World young zoot suit Zoot Suit Riots zoot suiters