All pages and cover are intact including the dust cover if applicable. Spine

All pages and cover are intact including the dust cover if applicable. Spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May include From the library of labels. Shrink wrap dust covers or boxed set case may be missing. Item may be missing bundled media.

Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 496 p. Contains: Unspecified. Americans and the California Dream. Audience: General/trade.

Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 496 p. Contains: Unspecified. Americans and the California Dream. Audience: General/trade.

Size: 9x5x1; n a lively and eminently readable narrative, Starr reveals how

Size: 9x5x1; n a lively and eminently readable narrative, Starr reveals how Los Angeles arose almost defiantly on a site lacking many of the advantages required for urban development, creating itself out of sheer will, the Great Gatsby of American cities. He describes how William Ellsworth Smyth, the Peter the Hermit of the Irrigation Crusade, the self-educated, Irish engineer William Mulholland (who built the main aquaducts to Los Angeles), and George Chaffey (who diverted the Colorado River, transforming desert into the lush Imperial Valley) brought life-supporting water to the arid South. He examines the discovery of oil, the boosters and land developers, the evangelists (such as Bob Shuler, the Methodist Savanarola of Los Angeles, and Aimee Semple McPherson), and countless other colorful figures of the period. There are also fascinating sections on the city's architecture the impact of the automobile on city planning, the Hollywood film community, the L.A. literati, and much more. By the end of the decade, Los Angeles had tripled in population and become the fifth largest city in the nation. In Material Dreams, Starr captures this explosive growth in a narrative tour de force that combines wide-ranging scholarship with captivating prose.