Embattled Dreams: California in War and Peace, 1940-1950 (Americans and the California Dream) - Tapa dura

Sinopsis

The sixth volume in Kevin Starr's monumental cultural history of California, Embattled Dreams deals with the years of World War II and after. In the 1940s California changed from a regional centre into the dominant economic, social and cultural force it has been in America ever since. The book follows the story of California year by year through the decade. It starts with people leading the complacent "good life" on the eve of the war (1940); then the decades-long harrassment of Japanese immigrants and their culture culminating in Pearl Harbor (1941); California as a strategic centre for military training and deployment; the shameful treatment of minorities, especially Hispanics and blacks (1943); California as the "arsenal" of democracy", especially the significant role women played in in the aviation industry (1944); Hollywood's "contributions" to the war (1945); veterans' homecoming and the creation of a "counterculture" with Henry Miller at Big Sur (1946); crime, newspapers, film noir, Raymond Chandler and hardboiled fiction in Southern California (1947); Earl Warren as governor and dominant political figure (1948); the anti-communist movement and "red baiting" (1946); and the coming of the Korean War and the California career of Richard Nixon (1950). The book continues the sweep and original perceptions already well-established in Starr's series, Americans and the California Dream. Starr is a skillful storyteller, and the book has all the drive and awesome learning of his earlier books. California in the years surrounding World War II was a special story, full of dramatic change, drama and intrigue, heroism and tragedy, and the emergence of a new. more powerful role for California in the nation. Starr captures this story with his unique vision and masterful prose.

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