California: An Interpretive History

Now in its tenth edition, California: An Interpretive History provides an up-to-date and comprehensive survey of California’s political and economic history, along with an account of its social and cultural affairs. First published 45 years ago, the text has become the standard in the field. The authors appraise the state’s virtues and accomplishments, as well as its faults and failures. Original interpretations are offered of the major challenges faced by the nation’s most populous and economically powerful state. The tenth edition places greater emphasis on issues of ethnicity and gender, adding new “voices” of the state’s diverse peoples. Additional interpretive material focuses on a wide range of topics in recent California history—the collapse of the “housing bubble” and global recession, the ongoing structural deficit in state finances, the passage of landmark climate-change legislation, the end of the Schwarzenegger era, and the emergence of new leadership.