What do you think?
Rate this book
Inventing Paradise: The Power Brokers Who Created the Dream of Los Angeles
Inventing The Power Brokers Who Created the Dream of Los Angeles
traces the improbable rise of Los Angeles through the prism of six visionaries who had outsize influence on the city’s Phineas Banning, Harrison Gray Otis, Henry Huntington, Harry Chandler, William Mulholland, and Moses Sherman.
In the late 1870s, Los Angeles was a violent, dusty, 29-square-mile pueblo with a few thousand souls, largely unchanged since its founding in 1781. By 1930, its size had swelled to within 96% of its current 468 square miles, housing a staggering 1.2 million people. In just 50 years, L.A. had joined the ranks of other world-class cities.
In the tradition of Mike Davis’s classic work City of Quartz, Paul Haddad (Freewaytopia and 10,000 Steps a Day in L.A.) debunks many myths about the City of Angels with a wildly entertaining narrative that sheds new light on the fascinating birth of modern Los Angeles. Power came from a select few, whose triumphs, scandals, and correspondence are well documented in Inventing Paradise, along with other little-known facts about L.A. history,
How Los Angeles Times chief Harry Chandler pushed eugenics and endorsed “white spots”
Henry Huntington’s and Moses Sherman’s trolley systems and the extortion-type practices that led to their expansion
When Los Angeles was so desperate for water, it hired a miracle worker who promised rain
How L.A.’s power elite peddled the lie that the Owens River used to flow into Los Angeles and rightfully belonged to the city
When Los Angeles annexed a city in which monkeys cast votes
How Venice, California, was not the first Venice, California
William Mulholland’s game-changing construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which raised the city’s population ceiling from 250,000 to 2.5 million
Haddad also covers the heavy costs that came with creating paradise in such a short period of time, including car dependency, environmental problems, and deep-seated inequities between wealthy white Angelenos and people of color due to racist policies. All have left an imprint on present-day Los Angeles.
Los Angeles is known as a city that should not exist—and yet it does. Through Inventing Paradise, Haddad shows readers that Los Angeles is not a paradise found, but a paradise that was willed into existence, owing to the collective vision of these six Gilded Era-born tycoons.
In the late 1870s, Los Angeles was a violent, dusty, 29-square-mile pueblo with a few thousand souls, largely unchanged since its founding in 1781. By 1930, its size had swelled to within 96% of its current 468 square miles, housing a staggering 1.2 million people. In just 50 years, L.A. had joined the ranks of other world-class cities.
In the tradition of Mike Davis’s classic work City of Quartz, Paul Haddad (Freewaytopia and 10,000 Steps a Day in L.A.) debunks many myths about the City of Angels with a wildly entertaining narrative that sheds new light on the fascinating birth of modern Los Angeles. Power came from a select few, whose triumphs, scandals, and correspondence are well documented in Inventing Paradise, along with other little-known facts about L.A. history,
How Los Angeles Times chief Harry Chandler pushed eugenics and endorsed “white spots”
Henry Huntington’s and Moses Sherman’s trolley systems and the extortion-type practices that led to their expansion
When Los Angeles was so desperate for water, it hired a miracle worker who promised rain
How L.A.’s power elite peddled the lie that the Owens River used to flow into Los Angeles and rightfully belonged to the city
When Los Angeles annexed a city in which monkeys cast votes
How Venice, California, was not the first Venice, California
William Mulholland’s game-changing construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which raised the city’s population ceiling from 250,000 to 2.5 million
Haddad also covers the heavy costs that came with creating paradise in such a short period of time, including car dependency, environmental problems, and deep-seated inequities between wealthy white Angelenos and people of color due to racist policies. All have left an imprint on present-day Los Angeles.
Los Angeles is known as a city that should not exist—and yet it does. Through Inventing Paradise, Haddad shows readers that Los Angeles is not a paradise found, but a paradise that was willed into existence, owing to the collective vision of these six Gilded Era-born tycoons.
403 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 18, 2024
35 people are currently reading
213 people want to read
About the author
Paul Haddad
8 books21 followersPaul Haddad is the author of several books about his native Los Angeles, including the L.A. Times Bestseller "Inventing Paradise: The Power Brokers Who Created the Dream of Los Angeles," "Freewaytopia: How Freeways Shaped Los Angeles," and "High Fives, Pennant Drives, and Fernandomania: A Fan’s History of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Glory Years (1977-1981)." His book "10,000 Steps a Day in L.A.: 57 Walking Adventures," also an L.A. Times Bestseller, has published two editions. As a writer and contributor, his work has appeared in such media as the L.A. Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post, The Times (UK), LAist, ESPN, NPR, and HuffPo. He is also the author of three novels. An MFA graduate of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, Haddad has been nominated for multiple Emmys as a documentary producer.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 23, 2024
Well written and easy to follow, I see this book easily being a great reference book for how LA was built; you get what it states it provides!
March 20, 2025
I saw this author speak and he was terrific. I didn't love the book, but that's on me, what it concentrates on is not what I am particularly interested in, real estate, the streetcar wars, the LA water situation, etc.is not my prime cup of tea. But it is good to know all this stuff if you want to be proficient in the history of LA, I personally just don't need to know such detail. But if you do, then by all means, this is the book for you.
December 23, 2024
3.5 rounded up. Required reading for anyone interested in Los Angeles history.
February 26, 2025
Not especially enlightening about Los Angeles. It's basically a list of political events rather than a piece on why LA developed
June 13, 2025
Fascinating book. If you grew up in Southern California, as I did, or live there, you will perhaps be familiar with some of the characters and what they contributed to the city’s development. I learned so much more than I already knew about the history of Los Angeles, how things came to be, how places got their names, the interaction of the prominent figures, the controversies. Well worth reading - and maybe re-reading. Highly recommend, particularly if you live in California.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews