The narrative explores California's complex history, revealing the tumultuous growth and conflicts that have shaped the state from European conquest to the present economic crisis. It challenges the sanitized version of the California dream, offering a more nuanced account filled with both struggles and triumphs. Alongside historical insights, the book provides recommendations for museums, state parks, and attractions, enriched by literary excerpts from local authors that capture the essence of California across different eras.
A witty, expansive narrative that reveals the real story of the people and places that makes up the Golden State. From the European conquest to today’s economic crisis, Californians have experienced tumultuous growth and painful conflicts. Like the grinding of tectonic plates that has produced the state’s very landscape, these encounters, disputes, and transformations have continuously made and remade California. California: On-the-Road History doesn’t relate the cleaned-up tale of the California dream that school textbooks and the tourism commission tell. Rather it presents the sometimes bitter, sometimes triumphant history behind the California myth. Included are recommended museums, state parks, and other attractions, alongside literary excerpts from local authors who give readers a sense of California in different eras. On-the-Road Histories Interlink’s new travel series is a glorious, full-color salute to the cultural, geographic, and historical riches of the United States. These brief histories are as idiosyncratic as the individual states themselves: here a treatise on country music; there a brief history of North American mountain climbing. Each volume nevertheless shares elements that make any one of them a literate companion for that American classic: the road trip. Featuring · Historical maps · Full-color & b&w photographs · Must-see sites · Famous sons & daughters · Literary extracts
