Coast of Dreams: California on the Edge, 1990-2003

Americans and the California Dream #8

by Kevin Starr

In this extraordinary book, Kevin Starr–widely acknowledged as the premier historian of California, the scope of whose scholarship the Atlantic Monthly has called “breathtaking”–probes the possible collapse of the California dream in the years 1990—2003. In a series of compelling chapters, Coast of Dreams moves through a variety of topics that show the California of the last decade, when the state was sometimes stumbling, sometimes humbled, but, more often, flourishing with its usual panache.

From gang violence in Los Angeles to the spectacular rise–and equally spectacular fall–of Silicon Valley, from the Northridge earthquake to the recall of Governor Gray Davis, Starr ranges over myriad facts, anecdotes, news stories, personal impressions, and analyses to explore a time of unprecedented upheaval in California. Coast of Dreams describes an exceptional diversity of people, cultures, and values; an economy that mirrors the economic state of the nation; a battlefield where industry and the necessities of infrastructure collide with the inherent demands of a unique and stunning natural environment. It explores California politics (including Arnold Schwarzenegger’s election in the 2003 recall), the multifaceted business landscape, and controversial icons such as O. J. Simpson.

“Historians of the future,” Starr writes, “will be able to see with more certainty whether or not the period 1990-2003 was not only the end of one California but the beginning of another”; in the meantime, he gives a picture of the place and time in a book at once sweeping and riveting in its details, deeply informed, engagingly personal, and altogether fascinating.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, The United States Of America, United States, Politics

784 pages, Hardcover

First published September 14, 2004

About the author

Kevin Starr was an American historian, best-known for his multi-volume series on the history of California, collectively called "America and the California Dream".

Reviews

[carl theaker · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you've read any of the other of the 'Dream' series the first difference you'll notice is the format, magazine style short chapters, often 4-5 pages. Makes it handy for getting a chapter in at lunch or before bed, how else to digest 60 some chapters spread over the 620 pages?

I think historians have a bit of trouble with the history they lived through and participated in, Starr was 50 in 1990, and a political appointee in California. Opinions are starting to get crusty in the mind, and he must be careful of offending masters, future masters, and peers or at least wary of what they may think. The short chapters also suggest he was taking notes for this book with one hand as they occurred and writing 'Golden Dreams' with the other.

Appropriately 'Coast' surfs up with a rehash of surfer stories from other books and segues into the current surfer industry and how it fits into the often mocked California mania for physical fitness and desire for immediate insight into one's introspection.

90's California saw a surge of religiosity, particularly in the mainstream areas of Protestant and Catholic, much to the surprise of pundits, but of course it is the whackier followings that gave the region its reputation.

One almost forgets about 'est' and the ecstasy fueled Raven, freezing bodies for future, Heaven's Gate - 39 suicides in a the wake of the Halle-Bopp comet, however many were also legit(more) and successful. Along with a big surge in interest in Buddhism with the visits of the Dali Lama,
membership and Hollywood big bucks flowed.

Describing various riots and work strikes in his books on California in the 20s & 30s Starr always puts the authorities in a fascist light and is horrified when machine guns are posted, which causes him to readily continually compare California to Nazi Germany, however when the Rodney King riots occur and Federal troops are called in to assist the already employed National Guard, there is not a hint of such a comparison. Could it be the troops are OK when they are saving Starr's Los Angeles, his heiny?

When describing the King riots he notes the animosity between the African American community and the Korean store owners and how the Koreans suffered heavily during the violence. However for the rest of the book when he cites the Korean problems he never again mentions that it was
the African American population that took out their frustrations on them. It is always LA that had a pogrom against the Koreans, or that LA offended the Korean sensibilities.

He further cripples his history with the fear and lingo of political correctness, there are no illegal aliens, just undocumented immigrants or immigrants and the economy of California, if not the state itself, would fall into the sea without its Mexican gardeners.

Even in foreign affairs Starr favors with the country of Mexico, hoping for some type of comeuppance to California, just as he pined for Japan to serve one up in 'Embattled Dreams California in War and Peace'.

Covering the hitech hijinks before, during and after the dot.com days is a fun episode particularly as I work in that industry. Though even here he remains hounded by his correctness: when Sun Microsystems converted an insane asylum to an office building he refers to it as a former state
facility for the 'developmentally disabled'. Seems like a long way around the barn to tell a tale.

Overall I've certainly enjoyed the 'Dream' series; 8 books covering from 1850 to 2003, though there is one gap, the 64-80s. Mmm Starr was in his 20s then, perhaps he partook in the era and doesn't quite remember it? I hope to read that paisley, tye-dyed story should he decide to tell it.

[Jamie White · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haven't started yet. As a native Californian, I took one look at this recommended book and knew I had to buy the decades leading up to it first. Next book order is going to look like a STarr extravaganza.

[Andrew Canfield]

Coast of Dreams: California on the Edge, 1990-2003, is one of the final installments of the late Kevin Starr's series on the evolution of California's culture, society, and economy. This well-regarded book, which was written by California's former state librarian, delves into numerous aspects of the state in the period of time mentioned in the subtitle.

The initial portion of the book covers a rough patch, both economically and violence-wise, in California and the United States. The early 1990s saw the U.S. in a recession, and Starr details the hardships this visited on the country's largest state. With the Cold War having just ended, layoffs in the defense industry (and the 1990 Base Realignment and Closure Act) hit the state hard. This was especially true in southern California, with the San Diego area struck by a major recessionary blow.

Gang violence was analyzed as a big issue in the state during the early 1990s.

The Asian Boyz, The Crips and Bloods, the Mexican Mafia; news stories were full of killings on the part of gang and drug-related violence that ran the gambit from Asian to black to Hispanic and even to the white Hell's Angel motorcycle group.

The distrust between the LAPD and the city's residents was another topic Starr looked at. He made the distinction that, unlike in Chicago or New York City, the compact between LA and its police department was more about looking the other way as long as a semblance of order was maintained. James Ellroy's LA Confidential was held up as a book whose content matter, although in that case looking at the 1950s, was representative of how many viewed the LAPD in the early 1990s.

The 1992 LA riots, which followed the beating of Rodney King, took up pages of detail as the pathetic police preparation and response came in for a scathing review. This event temporarily damaged LA's reputation and drove away downtown tourism for at least a year or two afterward.

But the relationship between the city and the LAPD, badly hurt during the Rodney King beating and LA riots fallout, was damaged even worse by the 1999 CRASH scandal. This scandal, which was outed by former CRASH program officer Rafael Perez, dealt with how the CRASH department of the police (a sort of souped-up wing of the police department created to go after LA gangs) ended up becoming gangsters themselves. Its motto was "We Intimidate Those Who Intimidate Others."

Planting evidence, beating up and shooting defenseless suspects; CRASH left a black eye on the department at the close of the decade and start of the millennium. The OJ Simpson murder trial, which held the nation's attention all the way through the October 1995 verdict, was also looked at through the context of LA's race relations and relations between areas like Pico-Union, central LA, and the police department.

California on the Edge looks at the contributions of various ethnic groups in the state. Increasing almost sevenfold between 1973 and 1993, the state's Chinese population grew at a rate even the Hispanic growth rate could not match over that stretch. The wealth and influence they managed to garner in the state in a relatively short period of time was looked at. The Hmong, Korean, and Japanese influence on California-and its view of itself as a sort of Asian and Mediterranean combination in culture, architecture, and society-was not ignored by Starr.

Key controversies statewide during the time period covered in the book centered around two governors: Pete Wilson and Gray Davis. The former's tough on immigration stance, which culminated in the 1994 passage of the controversial Proposition 187, was looked at dispassionately by the author. He also looked at efforts to push English language education for Hispanic students and attempts to cut down on illegal immigration. In many ways, what California dealt with in the mid-1990s was a precursor to what would become ripe ground for demagogues nationally two decades later.

The mid-1990s onward began to see the state's economy bounce back. With the tech boom and onset of the early Internet days, Silicon Valley and San Francisco became ground zero of almost insane numbers of overnight millionaires.

San Diego's attractiveness as a biotech hub played a role in helping it bounce back from the early 1990 defense expenditure cutbacks. Spearheaded by the hub of UC San Diego, the area had 170 biotech and medical tech companies located in the immediate vicinity by the late 1990s. Companies like Corvas International and Protein Polymer Technologies were just some of the San Diego companies leading the way, while Mark Lampert's $350 million San Francisco-based Biotechnology Vale Fund was helping the state become a biotech leader.

California's sensitivity to trade, which in 2000 sat at $1.3 trillion, ensured it would remain of important global standing for a long time coming. The container ports at places like Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Oakland helped keep the state's trade with the Pacific Rim and other parts of the world humming and made parts of the state Hanseatic cities of a sort. Japan remained the state's leading trade partner until it was replaced by Mexico in 1999.

The strength of the book is the seemingly endless and stories and anecdotes-big and small-about California during the era covered. Readers will be able to tell that Starr has a deep, supple knowledge of the state and its ups and downs in the 1990s through early 2000s. Mayors like Oakland's Jerry Brown and San Francisco's Willie Brown-who were shown as dedicated to their cities but also quite colorful men- made for some entertaining reading.

Fights over urban rail in the LA area, the electricity crisis of 2001-2002 which brought down both Enron and Governor Gray Davis; one story after another populates the book's pages like a highly readable novel. From good to bad to indifferent, Starr seemingly goes over the events of the 1990s with a fine tooth comb.

There are some awesome sections on the cultural, literary, and social aspects of cities like San Francisco, Palm Springs, Berkeley, and Santa Barbara. To hear Starr tell it, the swimming pool was to Palm Springs what the beach was to Santa Barbara.

Palm Springs as a center of wellness/spas, golf, and its unique role as a city that had largely invented itself in the post-World War Two era made it interesting to read about. The location of the Eisenhower Medical Center, Desert Hospital, and Betty Ford Center for Drug and Alcohol made it a respected center for top notch health care as well. From Frank Sinatra to Bob Hope, the area was a haven for a Hollywood brass who helped shape it both architecturally and culturally. The eclectic modernist architecture of Palm Springs was guided by architects like E. Stewart Williams (more of a pre-and-postwar variety) as well as John Lautner, Richard Neutra, and Albert Frey.

Spanish and Mediterrean Revival architecture in Santa Barbara was spearheaded by the work of individuals like Reginald Johnson, Lutah Maria Riggs, and Bertram Goodhue. Santa Barbara, where Oprah Winfrey resided in the 1990s, was said to be an area where spirituality was emphasized on the part of a lot of its residents.

The bohemian nature of San Francisco was looked at by Starr. While it certainly pushed the envelope in terms of gay and liberal culture, the underlying corporate nature of the city meant it never seemed to push things as far in a sandals-and-Birkenstock sort of direction as Berkeley tended to across the Bay.

There is an amazing portion which looks at the literary and restaurant highlights of these two Bay Area cities, and it is one of many things which makes this book such a great starting point for research into a whole array of Golden State-based topics. San Francisco-based novelists like Diane Johnson and Frances Meyers even come in for as mention, as do eateries like The Washington Square Bar and Grill and the New Pisa and cafes like Malvina's and Caffe Puccini.

It would take a lot of pages to go over the poets, academics, and writers whose contributions are present in Coast of Dreams. To go over the restaurants and cafes and bookshops would take even more; let it be enough to know that cultural aspects of the Golden State are not given short shrift.

Debates within California about water are, readers of this book will learn, nothing new.

Coast of Dreams spends ample time looking at the water crisis during the 1990s, as drought caused communities to cut back on usage and reconsider how the state was husbanding its resources. The role of environmentalism from fights again Pacific Lumber as well as Pacific Gas and Electric came in for analysis toward the conclusion. The tension between a state that loved its suburbs but also professed to love Mother Nature caused clashes over everything from spotted owls to redwood trees.

1992's Central Valley Improvement Act and the demonization of Pacific Lumber's Charles Hurwitz were featured in the section on the clash between wildlife and growth. This is one of a number of bills from 1990-2003 that the book looks at.

Coast of Dreams closes with California entering another phase of crisis. With the dot-com bust having taken place right before 9/11 and its subsequent negative economic impact, the state was entering hard times again at the book's conclusion.

Budget deficits, an electricity crisis, a stalling economy; the state goes from bust to boom to bust again over the course of Coast of Dream's 600+ pages.

This book is a really thorough work of nonfiction, and there is no way a reader can complete it without having gained some new insights into at least some aspect of the Golden State. It is clear that Kevin Starr is invested in his state and really wanted to document its ups and downs for posterity, and the sheer amount of characters and facts present in it make for deeply insightful reading.

It is surprising that things never seem to bog down. The exhaustive level of research done comes through, but it is laid out at a pace which hits just the right mix of brevity and detailed documentation.

A rich portrait of the largest state in the country and a top ten sized world economy on its own right was produced by Kevin Starr, and little seems to escape his gasp in a book of hugely impressive breadth and stature.

-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado

[Tom Leland · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book fell into my lap, and was so acclaimed I figured I should read it. But backroom machinations and intrigue bore me, and in any state or country that's much of what determines virtually every political or civic decision -- so, much of this book, particularly the financial dramas of California, was a slog. Plus, it's somewhat dated -- covering roughly 1990 - 2003. But I now know far more than I did about what happened in California after I left it in '86...

[Carl Palm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kevin Starr is my favorite California historian and his work was long an important resource for me in my own writing about the state. In Coast of Dreams he takes another deep dive into the complexities of the California experience, this time into the 1990s and early 21st century. As in his other books about the state, the range of reference here is nothing short of amazing; in fact, at times it’s hard to believe that any one person can possibly know all of the things that Starr so clearly does know, and then weave them together into such a monumental, yet easy-reading narrative. It’s a big book, some 765 pages, but like Starr’s other books about the state, a read well worth the considerable amount of time and effort it takes to make it all the way through.

[Terry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kevin Starr is a hero of mine and I've loved all his books to date. But not Coast of Dreams, which covers the 1990s up to the 2003 recall of Gray Davis. His other books (usually covering one decade each), had strong theses or themes and were rich in detail, but this one just seems to be random essays with chapters on specific topics -- and then on to the next. Starr is just going through the motions here. Some lazy writing, too (too much "As far as ---- was concerned....").

There are strong chapters on immigration and Pete Wilson, but a superficial chapter on the revival of downtown San Jose made me doubt Starr's knowledge and accuracy. Maybe I know too much about SJ, of course. At least SJ got a chapter in this book --otherwise Starr is very LA/SF/SD-centric and good luck to other cities in the state.

All that said, Starr has been very kind to me -- gave us a very nice quote for the jacket of our 2004 recall book (which is the last book to be cited in Coast of Dreams) and I'm looking forward to reading his volume on the 1950s. Really.

[Grindy Stone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better title is "Coast of Nightmares: LA and SF on the Edge," because 90% of the book is dedicated to cataloging murders, riots, crummy schools, earthquakes and other disasters in SoCal and the Bay Area, and places like Petaluma, San Luis Obispo, Barstow, Tehachapi, Susanville, et al aren't discussed unless a high-profile homicide happened there. I wonder how I made it through the 1990s in LA and escaped alive. Biggest issue with the book is that it's a series of essays and while some are pretty damn good (like the compare/contrast of Santa Barbara and Palm Springs), the rest are mere catalogs of news events and famous names, and there is no overarching theme to tie them all together.

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Starr is missed, his death has left a huge void.
Enjoy his thoughts on the Golden State.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though this book is not actually part of the Americans and the California Dream series, it follows the basic plan: essays on social, industrial, and political movements informed by visions of California exceptionalism. What makes it different is that here the historian has run into the present, and cannot distinguish what is merely ephemeral and what will be meaningful to future residents. Richard Rodriguez writes in ¨Disappointment¨ that
¨…by the time he reaches the 1990´s in his great work, [he] seems to sense an influential shift: The list of singular makers of California gives way to forces of unmaking – to gangs, earthquakes, riots, floods, ballot propositions, stalled traffic.¨
This seems unfair to me, though it makes one speculate about why Starr chose to write this particular book at this particular time, five years before he last volume in the series Golden Dreams. It was published not by Oxford but by Knopf (Starr states in his acknowledgement that the book was suggested by Bruce Harris who was with Random House) and is half again as long as any of the books in the series proper (the acknowledgement also states that ¨Sheldon Meyer, my good friend and editor for life, helped me pare down the manuscript to acceptable length.¨)!
None of this detracted from my enjoyment. More from Kevin Starr!

[Win Aldrich · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extremely well written book about the trials and tribulations of California in the 1990’s and Early part of the 21st Century. Starr has gathered the facts in great detail and provides a clear overview of the trends, people, pressures and de isions that shaped the State at the time and got it to where it is now.

[Spiros · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whither, California? or perhaps, wither California?, is the question posed by Kevin Starr, California's State Librarian and un-official state historian, in this "History of Contemporary California". He chronicles a long series of seismic, climatic, social, and political upheavals, starting with the Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989, ending with the advent of Governator Arnold in 2003; he concludes that our gyre is widening at an alarming rate, and the center is showing no sign of holding.

The good news: there are many centers in such a massive, heterogeneous construct. A trite metaphor: California is a large pond onto which handfuls of gravel are being cast. We Californians exist at the interstices of the waves generated by these impacts; it can get tumultuous, but that's life. You buy the ticket, you take the ride. California, like the Dude, abides.

Or, as one of my favorite California poets, the late Warren Zevon put it, in "Desperadoes under the Eaves":
And if California slides into the ocean
Like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill.

[N · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kevin Starr offers an engaging, fast-paced look at California in the latter part of the twentieth century, covering all the major social and political issues, as well as delving into the state’s geography and culture.

It’s a solid and well-researched book. Though Starr is a historian, Coast of Dreams is more journalistic in style. Starr weaves individual’s stories (mainly gleaned from contemporary newspaper stories) into the wider narrative, giving crises and politick personal resonance.

However, the sheer scope of the book means that, no matter how breezy Starr’s writing style, at 600+ pages, Coast is still a hell of a slog through to the end. Meditative, this is not. Starr chooses a subject, dives deep into it for ten pages, then jumps out and moves onto another subject. Though he strives for coherency when moving from subject to subject, Coast nonetheless feels like being bombarded with information. By the end, this machine-gun approach becomes deeply wearing.

[The American Conservative]

'Kevin Starr has an encyclopedic knowledge of California history and a novelist’s gift for writing. He uses both to advantage in Coast of Dreams, a comprehensive and insightful look at California since 1990. This is the seventh and the latest in his series of books focusing on California, in his words, “as an essential and compelling component of the larger American experience.” Like the others in the series, Coast of Dreams can be used as a highly readable but thoroughly scholarly textbook, a neat trick when it can be done. '

Read the full review, "California Dreamin'," on our website:
http://www.theamericanconservative.co...

[Foster · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starr put together a great review of recent California history, a great resource for a non-native newcomer like me.

However, he has a tendency for exaggeration and hyperbole, and as a result this volume is tough to read non-stop. Too often he suggests that California is facing a future of increased racial and socioeconomic disintegration, with all the resultant problems. I can see his point at times, but it is still tough to take.

I'll probably keep reading bits and pieces from time to time, but I'm done focusing on it for now.

[Margieh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a gossipy and fun history of California in the 1990s. I think Starr is at his best when he sticks to the details, but that can be a problem from a narrative perspective. There's stuff in here about the hot restaurants in San Francisco during the dot com boom, Steve Peace and energy deregulation, and the amazing story of the LA subway. What's missing is a few people or places that you can follow through the decade.

That said, it is a really fun book (by a state historian). If you enjoy a butterfly version of history, you'll like it too.

[John]

Anyone who loves California and wants to read the best perspectives on its history needs to pickup Ken Starr. He has composed so many volumes charting the growth of the State from the pre Gold Rush days until the Schwarzeneger era. A truly fascinating account. The man can tell a story and hook the reader. A great book to read on a quiet California hillside overlooking a beach.

[Jlawrence · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not always engaging, and sometimes Starr's conclusions seem off, but this is a good and fairly thorough overview of recent California history.