Golden State: The Making of California

by Michael Hiltzik

“Superb. Hiltzik makes a compelling case that California is the heartbeat of our nation.”—Douglas Brinkley, New York Times bestselling author of Silent Spring Revolution

From Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Hiltzik, a definitive new history of California—from the Spanish conquistadors to the Gold Rush to the state’s meteoric rise as a tech powerhouse and bulwark of progressivism—and of its indelible mark on the United States and the world.

California has long reigned as the land of plenty, a place where the sun always shines and opportunity beckons. Even prior to its statehood in 1850, it captured the world’s imagination. We think of bearded prospectors lured by the promise of gold; we imagine its early embrace of immigrant labor during the railroad boom as prologue to its diverse social fabric today. But what lies underneath the myth is far more complicated.

Thanks to extensive research by Michael Hiltzik, one of our longstanding voices on California, Golden State uncovers the unvarnished truth about the state we think we know well. From Spanish incursions into what became known as Alta California to the rise of Big Tech, the history of California is one of stark contradictions. In rich, previously overlooked detail, we see its earliest statesmen wreak havoc among native peoples while racing to draft their own constitution even ahead of statehood. Gold-hungry settlers venture into the Sierra foothills only to leave with little, while a handful of their suppliers turn themselves into millionaire railroad magnates. Wars erupt in the name of water as Los Angeles booms, and early efforts to tame the vast landscape create a haven for fossil fuel extraction and environmental conservation alike. Hollywood politicians stoke fear, contributing to a centuries-long tradition of anti-Asian violence, and, remarkably, legal redlining and free higher education take root together.

Golden State brings a fresh critical eye to the origins of the state against which the rest of the country measures itself. From its very start, Hiltzik shows, the story of the United States was written in California. 

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History

436 pages, Hardcover

First published February 18, 2025

Reviews

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes sequencing matters. When it comes to Golden State by Michael Hiltzik, it becomes a question of how much do you know about California's history before you dive in? The answer to that question is directly correlated to whether you will like it or love it.

Hiltzik tells the story of California from generally when Europeans arrived up to almost present day. Hitlzik has an easy prose and a willingness to make funny asides while calling out some ridiculous things along the way. The thing which kept me from truly enjoying it is the fact that I've read quite a few California history books, for example, the exceptional Trespassers at the Golden Gate by Gary Krist, Strangers in the Land by Michael Luo, and The Longest Minute by Matthew Davenport. All of these books go into greater detail than Hiltzik's who uses a chapter or two for some of the major events covered in these books. It's not a criticism because the authors are trying to do different things, but simply, Hiltzik's will pale in comparison because it is much less detailed.

As with any book covering a wide swath of time, Hiltzik needs to jump around in time and rush through events/people or eliminate them completely. There is a strange lack of pages attributed to the film industry, but Hiltzik is at his best in the early chapters describing the sometimes comical or tragic origins of the state.

In the end, if you know a lot of California history, then this book will be a solid reminder of the highlights. If you are a newbie, this may just be a five star read for you. Either way, it's worth a read.

(This book was provided as an advance reader copy by Mariner Books.)

[Mai H.]

Non-fiction November TBR

📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books

[Julian Douglass · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to thank NetGalley for giving me this book as a ARC (although this book has now been published for about a year now...oops).

Anyway, this was a fun book about California and its history around the central theme of growth, and being the national trendsetter from its discovery to the age of Newsome.

While this books was a interesting insight into California and all that it has to offer, I feel that the direction was a bit sloppy. Mr. Hiltzik followed a linear timeline from its founding to about the turn of the 20th century, but then went more thematic while discussing California in the 20th and 21st century. I don't mind that in some aspects, but I feel that he skimmed over a lot of interesting facts about 20th century California, either because there is so much written about it people can find it elsewhere, or that there were some editorial decisions that were made when publishing this book.

Regardless, not a bad primer on California, but I would put more information into 20th and 21st century California.

[Niklas Braun · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would call this an adequate overview of California's history. I think it covered all of the relevant time periods for what it was trying to discuss. I will say that it felt very disjointed in that it only focused on what the author deemed the primary issues of each time period. I will also dare to say that it was... boring at times.

[Don Schmidt · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are looking for a comprehensive history of California, that is not this book. What Mr. Hiltzik does do is write about seminal events that occurred in California's history that would affect its people in ensuing decades.

The book opens with the arrival of the Europeans and how their colonization affected native people and their environs. He then takes us through the spectrum of CA history, from the Spanish period, to the short lived Mexican era, to arrival of the Americans that led to a quick statehood in 1850.

Appropriately, the first half of the book focuses on Northern California. In the second half, Hiltzik pivots to the south and the rise of Los Angeles into the 21st Century.

The events Mr. Hiltzik writes about are more of the dark events that occurred in California's history rather than optimistic ones we are used to reading about. The only major event I found missing is the rise of Big Oil in Southern California, which seems to be overshadowed by Hollywood most of the time. I do give him credit for spending time on the importance of the rise of the aviation history in Los Angeles, which was so important to the So Cal's economy for much of the 20th Century.

As a 5th generation Californian, I did learn about events I was never taught in school, along with more in-depth analysis on events I was already aware of. For people interested in CA history, I would recommend this book as gateway to future interest, reading and research on history of the Golden State.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

My book group was all thumbs UP on this new "history" of California. I was the odd man out. I only gave it a sideways thumb. There were some high points (fun facts) like the chapter on Aimee Semple McPherson where the writer was witty and sarcastic. But usually I was slightly bored by the regurgitation of facts we already knew. Even though I am an unreconstructed liberal, I got a little annoyed by author's tendency to find the one thing that was "bad" about the person or event and focus on that. Read the chapter focusing on Earl Warren for an example.
Nevertheless, if you are a newcomer to California history, this might not be too bad of a way to start. Or if you prefer to have your history served up on a bright shiny happy platter, start with Irvin Stone's "Men to Match My Mountains." (There must be some in-between, isn't there?)
Overall: This was another distressing memoir of the activities of a bunch of white men, suppressing the "other" people of "other colors" and taking everything away from them. What else is new?

[Basil Latif · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Golden State" reads like a fast-paced history book which is great. Tons of details, facts, and stories about the people presented as they relate to California’s history, starting with the discovery of California by the Spanish through statehood and up to the present day. The first half of the book is chronological; towards the end, each chapter becomes about a new micro topic about some important facet of the state’s history. Author does a great job of explaining the racism that has been a central undercurrent during the state’s development. That part stood out to me.
People I Learned About:
Abbot Kinney - heir to cigarette fortune; built Venice canals
Leland Stanford - railroad tycoon; founder of Stanford University
William Mulholland - civil engineer who secured water rights for LA
Ramona novel - I always see tons of streets named “Ramona” in SoCal. Now I know it relates to a famous novel.
James Irvine - owned a bunch of land in the Irvine area

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've taught California history, and, were I to get that assignment again, I'd use this book as the textbook for such a course. Hiltzik certainly did his homework on this subject, and it's a very good fast-moving history of California from European settlement almost to the present (he published it in 2022, so close enough). Since he writes for the Los Angeles Times, I wasn't surprised that, as we got closer and closer to the present, the book became more concerned with Southern California, but that's a minor flaw in a book as good as this one.

[Christie Bane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book. I wanted to read it and bask in the golden glow of California history. But while I appreciate the immense research that went into writing it, it was a SLOG. Maybe it was the tiny font or dense paragraphs, but I struggled with this one start to finish. On the plus side, I did randomly become inspired while reading the chapter about John Muir and Yosemite to write a historical fiction novel about John Muir. Who knows whether I’ll ever do it, but that’s just proof that inspiration can strike anywhere.

[Monica Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good history of California, along with detailing the missteps along the way. Worth a read!

[Connor Yablonski · Rating 2 out of 5]

i prefer a more moderate view in my history book

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having read some of Hiltzik's business and political columns, maybe I was hopeful he'd be more like his LA Times compadres, David Cay Johnston. Alas, such is not the case. By the end of the book, I realized that, on political framing, we had a stereotypical mainstream California neoliberal.

That said, that was among the least of this book's problems. A general thinness, along with bad framing and errors, lead to the two stars.

The prologue has issues, along with the start of the first chapter.

The first is California exceptionalism. Maybe it's not as bad as Texas exceptionalism, but I can’t let that go scot free.

The second is related. HOW is the Great Migration of African-Americans not one of the three biggest internal migrations in US history? If you can’t decide which of the three California ones to dump, then expand to four.

Third, while noting the loss of a Congressional seat in 2020, at least in the prologue, he doesn’t pursue that further, on the issue of how much dross the Golden State may currently have.

Fourth, while mentioning climate change, and Cal advances in environmentalism, he doesn’t mention Cal pulled punches.

Fifth, dividing California into “mountains, valleys and deserts” ignores coasts as a separate geographic area. It ignores the geographic history structuring of Fradkin’s “The Seven States of California.”

Sixth, per the subtitle “The Making of California,” while Hiltzik talks about Spanish/Mexican depravities against American Indians, including using the word “genocide” in northern California and rightly so, Indians are written out of the starting point; the “making” only begins when Europeans get there.

Seventh, Spain and Mexico together are given just one chapter plus a short second one for the beginnings of American intrusion — with Hiltzik also getting Anglo-centrically incorrect his shorthand version of how the Mexican War started.

I guess technically, since the gold wasn’t discovered until 1848, “Golden State” as a book “should” be Anglo-centric, but boy.

And now, some in-book errors, and some big in-book misframings.

Contra Hiltzik when talking about the Japanese in America? Chinese did at times, become US citizens in the latter 1/3 of the 19th century. It was not until 1922 Supreme Court ruling that Japanese (and other Asians) were officially not "white." See “Strangers in the Land” for more on Chinese immigrants and US citizenship.

The McNamara trial for the LA Times bombing? Hiltzik makes no sense. He notes Job Harriman, a member of the McNamara legal team, also was the "socialist" candidate for LA mayor, who "won the Democratic primary." He then says "the city's labor and socialist voters reacted with revulsion to the McNamaras' guilty pleas, which were filed only days before the election. They took their anger out on Harriman, who lost to George Alexander, the incumbent mayor he had trounced in the primary."

First, do we know there was a cause and effect? Second, if there WAS one, it would seem the Otis/LA Chamber of Commerce people turning out in droves.

Third, LA elections then and today were nonpartisan. What appears to be the truth is that this was a "top two" jungle primary and a general election after that. Indeed, tho his party affiliation wasn't on the ballot, Alexander was a Republican. See Wiki for details.

At this point, we're approaching DNF territory.

The Owens River and Los Angeles Aqueduct chapter approach whitewashing. Marc Reisner is cited by name on page 14; his magisterial “Cadillac Desert” is nowhere referenced in this chapter or elsewhere. H.L. Mencken is cited by name twice, and quoted, in the next chapter. Mencken isn’t bad, but really?

In the Depression, Hiltzik spins Upton Sinclair and Dr. Francis Townsend as little more than cranks.

We’re in grokking territory now, and I’m also recognizing Hiltzik as that very common species — the mainstream neoliberal Californian.

And, at this point, I’m pretty sure we’re in two-star territory, which distinguishes me from Soy Boy the History Nerd and his surface-skimming four-star review.

On some other chapters of this book? “The Crusades of Cesar Chavez” is a broadly sympathetic yet critical biography. There’s all sorts of Nixon bios out there. There's critical histories of Silicon Valley, whose current techdudebros are shitting all over the country.

So, we have both inaccuracies and bad framing for the history-light people, and nothingburgers for the serious history readers. I guess Soy Boy is a tertium quid. And, contra him, this book is not a book to read and I gave you plenty of other stuff instead.

Hiltzik is lucky to get two stars, as I think of that last item.

[Behrooz Parhami · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to the unabridged 15-hour audio version of this title (read by Bob Souer, Mariner Books, 2025).

This book, by Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Michael Hiltzik, isn’t just a definitive, well-written, and engaging history of California but also establishes the Golden State as the heartbeat of our nation. From the viewpoint of resources, population, and talent, California is more like a country than a state, boasting 12% of the US’s population, 14% of its GDP, and 16% of its tax base. California’s $4-trillion economy is the fourth largest in the world, having recently surpassed Japan. Only the US, China, and Germany have larger economies. California is the movies, aerospace, and information-systems capital of the world and a bastion of liberalism and environmentalism.

Before its current liberal bona fide, however, California was a racist state that viewed Chinese, Japanese, and Mexican immigrants, as well as racial minorities with disdain. The idea of Japanese internment during World War II arose in California and quickly spread to the rest of the nation. Before the Japanese, hatred was directed at Chinese immigrants, later extending to Mexicans and others of Latino descent. Tolerance and inclusion took hold in the 1960s and 1970s, alongside protests against the Vietnam War, police brutality, and worker exploitation.

California captured the world’s imagination even before becoming a state in 1850. Its Gold Rush of 1848 to mid-1850s, world-famous aqueducts, railroad boom of the 1880s, and diverse social fabric are stuff of legends.

Michael Hiltzik’s extensive research and masterful story-telling bring a fresh critical eye to the origins of our beloved state, against which the rest of the country and the world measure themselves. From the Spanish incursions, that began in the 1540s and culminated in the claim of Alta California as part of New Spain until 1821, to the modern-day industrial, agricultural, and cultural center of gravity of the US, Hiltzik tells the story of determined settlers, with their errant and ingenious ways that helped write the story of our great nation. Hiltzik’s narrative includes wonderful histories of the Los Angeles metropolis and of Silicon Valley.

The rise of Los Angeles, from a small town with a few thousands of residents to a city of 34,000 square miles, 18 million residents, and one of the densest networks of freeways, is truly awe-inspiring. A highly successful aerospace industry and the glamor of Hollywood played key roles in the city’s rise. Persistent racial tensions and the associated riots in the City of Angels are also aptly covered.

The San Francisco Bay area in general, and Silicon Valley in particular, also get their dues. The student protest movement at UC Berkeley, which was instrumental in fueling culture wars and the rise of Reagan to governorship and, later, to US presidency. Governor Pat Brown’s visionary leadership, particularly his efforts in designing and implementing California’s system of higher education that has become the envy of the world, is an important part of the state’s history.

Finally, the stories of Xerox, Hewlett-Packard, Apple, and other companies that gifted us personal computing, high-speed communication, the Internet, and much more in way of technology and creature comforts is well-told.

As I write this review in mid-December 2025, California is still a driving force for technical and cultural innovation, but it has somehow fallen out of favor with much of the country. It is safe to say that America’s might would be significantly diminished without the Golden State. I hope that under an enlightened national leadership, California will regain its prestige and is mimicked by other states in their pursuit of economic and social advancement.

[Lisa Vegan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My three favorite chapters were probably those about the 1906 quake, the one about John Muir and one about the executive order 9066/the Japanese internment during WWII. I learned things in every chapter and I thought that every chapter was important but I enjoyed these chapters the most, in part because I knew a lot about each and yet I learned a lot more.

I learned the origin of some lesser known (to me) place names. (I discovered some things about the family of a man that I knew.)

I have lived in a few other states for from a couple of months to more than a year, but California has been my lifelong permanent residence. I found out a lot I had never before known. Much of it is not pretty. No surprise there! The way people treat each other and the way they treat nature does not leave me feeling positively about humanity, nor does it make me more optimistic about where we are and where we look to be headed.

At times I wondered why the author chose to cover what they did and where they placed the content within the book but I ended up thinking that he made smart decisions and that the whole narrative came together beautifully. The book is full of detailed information and it’s dense and some might find it dry but my interest never wavered.

There are many photos and a map of California from 1855. They make the book even more absorbing. There are many types of photos and they include a couple more maps. Only the last two photos are in color; the rest of the photos are in black & white. I am wondering if in the paper edition of the book the photos are in the book proper and near their part of the text. That would have been even better than the photo section in the back of the e-copy.

Recommended for readers who are interested in California and its history.

I actually read the Libby eCopy.

Contents:

Cover
Title Page
Map
Dedication
Epigraph

Prologue: California, Land of Contradictions

Part I: The Quest for El Dorado

1. A Terrestrial Paradise
2. The Americans Arrive
3. The Bear Flag Revolt
4. The Sordid Cry of Gold
5. The Thirty-First Star
6. The Age of Genocide

Part II: The Railroad Era

7. The Chinese Must Go”: San Francisco After the Gold Rush
8. The Octopus
9.. The Shadow of Mussel Slough
10. The First Water War
11. “City of the Damned”
12. The Progressive Revolution
13. John Muir and the Battle for Conservation

Part III: California Ascendant

14. Conjuring Los Angeles
15. Ghosts of the Owens Valley
16. The Utopians
17. Executive Order 9066
18. The Selling of Richard Nixon
19. Tomorrowland

Part IV: The Era of Limits

20. Ronald Reagan and the Legacy of Pat Brown
21. La Causa
22. Disaster at Platform A
23. Six Days in Watts
24. The Crisis of Growth
Epilogue: Keeping the California Dream Alive

Acknowledgments
Selected Bibliography
Notes
Index
Photo Section
About Mariner Books
About the Author
Also by Michael Hiltzik
Copyright
About the Publisher

[Zack Whitley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book isn't the history of California that I was expecting. Rather, Hiltzik focuses on episodes in California history that he claims show the "truth" of the state. Usually, he focuses on periods of exploitation, injustice, racism and environmental destruction. It's depressing as hell and I suspect few people will find it enjoyable or fun reading. HIltzik doesn't really go deep in any of these chapters, but for most readers, including myself, it's probably deep enough. It's more like "how did we get where we are now" than a straight forward history.

After a brief look at the Spanish and Mexican periods in California (and the introduction of the theme of exploitation and slavery), the first half of the book focuses squarely on the northern part of the state around San Francisco and Sacramento: we get stories of corruption in San Francisco government, racism everywhere, the genocide of California's Indians and the destructive nature of the gold rush. This was mostly new to me and it was interesting if not uplifting. I would have liked Hiltzik to bring to life for me what a gold rush camp was like, or what San Francisco or Sacramento was like in the late nineteenth century. He doesn't do this and I was left wondering why anyone wanted to move to so terrible a place as the one he described. The story about the founding of the Southern Pacific Railroad and its subsequent domination of California politics and life was interesting. The Big Four (Huntington, Hopkins, Stanford and Crocker) are villains in this story by the way. What is lost is that San Francisco and Sacramento were boom towns during all of this - flourishing - but you'd never know it from this book.

The second half of the book focuses mostly on southern California and the area around LA (sorry, San Diego barely rates a mention in this book). Here again is rampant racism (Hiltzik touches on the anti-Chinese riots, the zoot suit riots, and especially on the Watts riots). Corruption is endemic. Some of these chapters were quite interesting: the rise of Nixon and Reagan makes for interesting if, again, depressing, reading. They were really scoundrels and did the state from which they came no lasting favors. The efforts to bring water to LA are also interesting; here Hiltzik seems to side with the city of LA and place the blame for what happened on greedy Owens Valley farmers. But again, there is no effort made to bring LA and its boom years to life: what drew people here and how most of them experienced southern California is glossed over.

The most salient chapters are probably the chapters linking the housing crisis and the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969: the unintended consequences of environmental protection and limited growth are the increased cost of housing. This is worthwhile reading and Hiltzik isn't wrong, but don't think of this as traditional history writing.

[Ethan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love it or hate it, California has proven incredibly important and influential, both in its own right and as part of the United States of America. Michael Hiltzik has done well at attempting to tell the overall story of how California has come to be in Golden State: The Making of California (galley received as part of early review program).

The author set the scene well: an overview of all the Indigenous Californians present throughout the land; the first expeditions and incursions of the Spanish and later Russians; the establishment of the missions; as part of Mexico; the emigration of Americans and the inevitable takeover by the Americans. The author well described the gold rush, the genocide of the Indigenous, the immoral treatment of non-white populations and the attempts at enshrining white supremacy in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and the development of the railroads and the choke hold the railroad barons maintained on power. He well addressed the reaction to these and the establishment of direct democracy by proposition.

Shorter shrift is given to everything which has led to modern California, but for understandable reasons, since each section could become its own book: environmentalism, San Francisco, and Hetch Hetchy; the 1906 earthquake; Southern California boosterism, the Aqueduct, the development and growth of Hollywood and the aerospace industry, racial unrest embodied in the Watts uprising, California conservativedom with Nixon and Reagan, and California coming to grips with limits in terms of its water resources, wildfires, taxation programs, housing, and the like as the means by which to explain the politics and developments within the state over the past 50 years.

This is a well written introduction to how California has come to be and its social and political developments. As goes California, so goes the nation? So it has been; so it might continue to be.

[Dave Suiter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admit I’m a bit biased—having been born and raised in California, I consider it the greatest of all 50 states. But what truly sets it apart is its long, complex, and often tumultuous history. From Native American civilizations to Spanish conquistadors, Gold Rush fortune seekers to railroad tycoons, oil barons to tech moguls—California has been at the heart of America’s biggest transformations. It’s the birthplace of global trends, the launching pad for two U.S. presidents, and a powerhouse on the world stage.

In Golden State: The Making of California, Michael Hiltzik takes everything I learned in my fourth-grade California history class and dials it up past 11. With masterful storytelling, he unravels the sweeping history of the Golden State, capturing the rise, setbacks, and resilience that shaped it into not just the best state in America, but a global force. This is a must-read for history buffs and Californians alike!

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I grew up in California until high school, so I know lot of California history (more than Texas history). Field trips growing up included, gold mines, panning for gold, missions, and Presidios. I knew I had a decent understanding of the state’s history. Golden State filled in so many holes and expanded on the basics I had. Mind blowing amount.

Golden State was informative, but an easy ready as well. The book starts for the quest of El Dorado and covers everything to current state history and politics (though interesting to find out a lot of policies were made just after the 1906 earthquake and still on the books.

Thank you NetGalley and Mariner Books for the advanced reader copy. #GoldenState #NetGalley

[Ryan Fruehwirth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant retelling of California's history, spanning from early Spanish-Native American conflicts to the state's modern political landscape under Governor Gavin Newsom. Hiltzik writes with clarity and conviction, offering complete and thorough insights into the complex forces that have shaped California. I learned a lot in this bool, particularly regarding the controversial proposal to extend the Mason-Dixon line to the Pacific Ocean when California was seeking statehood.

One challenge of this book is that it doesn't follow a strictly chronological structure, which can occasionally make the timeline difficult to track. That being said, this is worth the read and very well done.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could tell the author’s political leanings within the first chapter, which makes it hard to take this as genuine history. Hiltzik doesn’t just recount California’s past, he frames it to reflect the version of the state he finds politically favorable.

Hiltzik’s storytelling ability is evident, and his command of detail shows a veteran journalist’s skill. But the tone betrays a clear bias early on. Historical interpretation becomes selective, and the framing of California’s economic and political development leans heavily toward a particular ideological narrative. The result isn’t a balanced chronicle of the state’s evolution, it’s an argument about what the author thinks California should represent.

[Happy Booker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book examines how California became a symbol of opportunity and conflict. Waves of immigration, ambitious infrastructure projects, boom to bust economies, and deep social divides. Hilzik highlights the ideals that have made the state a global leader and also confronts the recurring challenges of inequality, environmental problems, and political dysfunction. I enjoyed the history of this book as it portrays the promise of California as an influential state while examining the golden state as a place of reinvention and struggle.

[David Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deeply researched, although arguably too much so, as the 19th century gets a lot of ink and the entertainment industry barely rates a mention. There is little poetry to be found within these pages. Still, Hiltzik writes directly and economically about vast swaths of time and various high and low points. He doesn't shrink from ugly chapters in state history, like anti-Chinese prejudice, the Watts rebellion and the presidential order that stripped the rights of thousands of Japanese Americans. A solid one-volume history of the state.

[Will Plunkett · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, for this "salubrious" book (I have to say, this oft-repeated motif term is a new vocabulary word for me now). As someone who knows about this state of which I have lived for most of my life, I still learned much I did not know. One of my college professors was even a source in the bibliography. This could be a good starting-off point textbook for college or high school (with plenty of sources and time periods for further research by the students).

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary of the founding of modern California. It starts in the 1500's and ends with the current situation. It is unvarnished in its descriptions of racial bigotry, genocide of the native Indians and continual mis direction purported by politicians. The writing style is superb and research encyclopedic.

I will use it as a reference guide going forward.

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished reading Golden State by @hiltzikm for @SenBlakespear’s book club. Everyone arguing about California’s budget, housing, and governance should read it. It explains how we got here and why today’s challenges didn’t come out of nowhere. Required reading for anyone who cares about this state.

[Steve Mayer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Less a comprehensive history of California than a set of journalistic essays, this book shows the highs and lows of California history. I would have liked to see more in depth analysis, and more of an attempt to tie the various strands together.

[Nav · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite its length, it's organized well and flies by.

[Eric Dopp · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well-written current day history of California.

[Andrew Morin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and readable narrative. Appreciated the focus in some aspects, like water and the early urban development. I think some areas are unbalanced: would have liked more on suburbanization, for instance, and maybe less on national politics.

Also I had to remind myself there are more than two cities (and the Central Valley) in California. Would have been nice to hear what’s happening in San Diego or San Jose, even briefly