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Right Out of California: The 1930s and the Big Business Roots of Modern Conservatism
"Olmsted's vivid, accomplished narrative really belongs to the historiography of the left… as her strong research shows, race and gender prejudice informed or deformed, almost the whole of American social and cultural life in the 1930s and was as common on the left as on the right."
― The New York Times Book Review
NOW IN PAPERBACK An "arresting" ( In These Times ) new history of modern American conservatism, uncovering its roots in the turbulent agricultural fields of Depression-era California
In a reassessment of modern conservatism, noted historian Kathryn S. Olmsted reexamines the explosive labor disputes in the agricultural fields of Depression-era California, the cauldron that inspired a generation of artists and writers and triggered the intervention of FDR's New Deal. Right Out of California , which received a full-page review in the New York Times when it was published in hardcover, tells how this brief moment of upheaval terrified business leaders into rethinking their relationship to American politics―a narrative that pits a ruthless generation of growers against a passionate cast of reformers, writers, and revolutionaries.
At a time when a resurgent immigrant labor movement is making urgent demands on twenty-first-century America―and when a new and virulent strain of right-wing anti-immigrant populism is roiling the political waters― Right Out of California is a fresh and profoundly relevant touchstone for anyone seeking to understand the roots of our current predicament.
― The New York Times Book Review
NOW IN PAPERBACK An "arresting" ( In These Times ) new history of modern American conservatism, uncovering its roots in the turbulent agricultural fields of Depression-era California
In a reassessment of modern conservatism, noted historian Kathryn S. Olmsted reexamines the explosive labor disputes in the agricultural fields of Depression-era California, the cauldron that inspired a generation of artists and writers and triggered the intervention of FDR's New Deal. Right Out of California , which received a full-page review in the New York Times when it was published in hardcover, tells how this brief moment of upheaval terrified business leaders into rethinking their relationship to American politics―a narrative that pits a ruthless generation of growers against a passionate cast of reformers, writers, and revolutionaries.
At a time when a resurgent immigrant labor movement is making urgent demands on twenty-first-century America―and when a new and virulent strain of right-wing anti-immigrant populism is roiling the political waters― Right Out of California is a fresh and profoundly relevant touchstone for anyone seeking to understand the roots of our current predicament.
336 pages, Paperback
First published October 6, 2015
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April 6, 2017
Most observers of the emergence of what has come to be called “conservatism” in America locate its roots in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. They point to the works of Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Ayn Rand; the political campaigns of Barry Goldwater, George Wallace, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan; the pro-business decisions of the United States Supreme Court; and, perhaps more than any other factor, the decades-long efforts of extremely wealthy Americans to build a network of right-wing think tanks and other organizations to move public opinion to the right. Now, in Right Out of California: The 1930s and the Big Business Roots of Modern Conservatism, historian Kathryn Olmsted argues that the origins of the movement lie instead in the blood-stained labor conflicts in California’s Central Valley and Imperial Valley in the years before World War II.
FDR, the New Deal, and the war in the fields
Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal is widely thought to have healed the most gaping wounds of the Great Depression and brought long-awaited justice to millions of Americans. There is, of course, a great deal of truth to this. Social Security, the minimum wage, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and a plethora of alphabet agencies such as the WPA, the CCC, and others undoubtedly made life far more livable for millions of seniors, out-of-work men and women, and industrial workers. What is less well known today is that Roosevelt was only able to push his legislation through Congress with the support of racist and right-wing Southern Democrats, who prevented him from including agricultural workers in any of his signature programs. The large majorities of farm workers, both in the South and in California, who were African American or Mexican gained virtually nothing from the New Deal.
When their wages were slashed by the owners of the factory farms who even then dominated California agriculture, consigning millions of agricultural workers to starvation, labor conflict broke out in the fields. Motivated by the mistaken belief that New Deal legislation covered them, and encouraged by labor organizers who arrived on the scene to support them, California farm workers soon found themselves in often pitched battles with local law enforcement and the vigilantes egged on by the owners.
Olmsted argues that the packers’ and growers’ increasingly sophisticated efforts to organize themselves led not only to bloody conflicts but formed the backbone of the virulent opposition to FDR and the New Deal. She traces the emergence of right-wing organizations funded by California agribusiness to the selection and support of Richard Nixon as their champion and thence in a virtually straight line to the presidential campaigns of Goldwater, Reagan, and Nixon himself.
Anti-communism and labor conflict
During the years of the Great Depression, before Stalin’s crimes were widely known outside the Soviet Union and several years before his pact with Nazi Germany, thousands of intelligent and well-meaning young people in the United States flocked to the Communist Party. With the impatience of youth, many saw Roosevelt’s New Deal as half-hearted reform in the interest of saving capitalism (which wasn’t far from the truth). Some of the brightest young Communists rushed to the labor movement as a focus of organizing the “working class.” Often, established trade unions declined to move into industries where violence might break out. The Party then organized its own radical unions.
Sometimes alone, and sometimes in competition with existing unions, Communist organizers took on the toughest assignments — and it was in the agricultural fields of California that the conflict became most violent. Communists were often in the forefront of the clash with agribusiness. Unfortunately, their presence gave the packers and growers the pretext to raise the specter of a Soviet takeover in resisting the workers and afforded them the opportunity to speak out against FDR’s reforms because the Administration was “riddled with Reds.”
Olmsted argues that the resulting anti-Communist organizing that spread to the cities and engulfed the state’s Republican Party later formed the foundation for what we know of today as “conservatism.” This is an interesting line of argument, and up to a point it’s difficult to refute: without question, the same forces that built the state’s Republican Party around Richard Nixon in the late 1940s and 50s had been active in the actions of the 1930s. Where the argument grows thin is in later years. As President, Nixon proved unreliable at best on domestic issues as he sought a place in history through his opening to China. Younger people, coming of age with the Goldwater, Wallace, and Reagan campaigns, became dominant in the Republican Party. Their links to the pitched battles of the 1930s were indirect, at best. Surely, the establishment of think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and other right-wing institutions founded in the 1960s and 70s played a far larger role in the development of what passes for conservatism today than the efforts of former president Herbert Hoover and the Hoover Institution at Stanford that Olmsted mentions so prominently.
About the author
Kathy Olmsted heads the department of history at the University of California, Davis, where she has taught since 1993. A specialist in the study of anti-Communism, she has written four books. Right Out of California is the most recent.
FDR, the New Deal, and the war in the fields
Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal is widely thought to have healed the most gaping wounds of the Great Depression and brought long-awaited justice to millions of Americans. There is, of course, a great deal of truth to this. Social Security, the minimum wage, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and a plethora of alphabet agencies such as the WPA, the CCC, and others undoubtedly made life far more livable for millions of seniors, out-of-work men and women, and industrial workers. What is less well known today is that Roosevelt was only able to push his legislation through Congress with the support of racist and right-wing Southern Democrats, who prevented him from including agricultural workers in any of his signature programs. The large majorities of farm workers, both in the South and in California, who were African American or Mexican gained virtually nothing from the New Deal.
When their wages were slashed by the owners of the factory farms who even then dominated California agriculture, consigning millions of agricultural workers to starvation, labor conflict broke out in the fields. Motivated by the mistaken belief that New Deal legislation covered them, and encouraged by labor organizers who arrived on the scene to support them, California farm workers soon found themselves in often pitched battles with local law enforcement and the vigilantes egged on by the owners.
Olmsted argues that the packers’ and growers’ increasingly sophisticated efforts to organize themselves led not only to bloody conflicts but formed the backbone of the virulent opposition to FDR and the New Deal. She traces the emergence of right-wing organizations funded by California agribusiness to the selection and support of Richard Nixon as their champion and thence in a virtually straight line to the presidential campaigns of Goldwater, Reagan, and Nixon himself.
Anti-communism and labor conflict
During the years of the Great Depression, before Stalin’s crimes were widely known outside the Soviet Union and several years before his pact with Nazi Germany, thousands of intelligent and well-meaning young people in the United States flocked to the Communist Party. With the impatience of youth, many saw Roosevelt’s New Deal as half-hearted reform in the interest of saving capitalism (which wasn’t far from the truth). Some of the brightest young Communists rushed to the labor movement as a focus of organizing the “working class.” Often, established trade unions declined to move into industries where violence might break out. The Party then organized its own radical unions.
Sometimes alone, and sometimes in competition with existing unions, Communist organizers took on the toughest assignments — and it was in the agricultural fields of California that the conflict became most violent. Communists were often in the forefront of the clash with agribusiness. Unfortunately, their presence gave the packers and growers the pretext to raise the specter of a Soviet takeover in resisting the workers and afforded them the opportunity to speak out against FDR’s reforms because the Administration was “riddled with Reds.”
Olmsted argues that the resulting anti-Communist organizing that spread to the cities and engulfed the state’s Republican Party later formed the foundation for what we know of today as “conservatism.” This is an interesting line of argument, and up to a point it’s difficult to refute: without question, the same forces that built the state’s Republican Party around Richard Nixon in the late 1940s and 50s had been active in the actions of the 1930s. Where the argument grows thin is in later years. As President, Nixon proved unreliable at best on domestic issues as he sought a place in history through his opening to China. Younger people, coming of age with the Goldwater, Wallace, and Reagan campaigns, became dominant in the Republican Party. Their links to the pitched battles of the 1930s were indirect, at best. Surely, the establishment of think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and other right-wing institutions founded in the 1960s and 70s played a far larger role in the development of what passes for conservatism today than the efforts of former president Herbert Hoover and the Hoover Institution at Stanford that Olmsted mentions so prominently.
About the author
Kathy Olmsted heads the department of history at the University of California, Davis, where she has taught since 1993. A specialist in the study of anti-Communism, she has written four books. Right Out of California is the most recent.
February 15, 2021
This book truly made my blood boil. This clearly explained the origins of the Republican playbook of the 20th C; documented the erasure of Mexican people in Steinbeck’s works on labor; Republican demonization of centrist views by lying and calling them Communists; and helped make sense of the alliance between big business conservatives and religious conservatives. Oof.
July 26, 2016
At the end of the current US election cycle, regardless of who ends up in the White House, I think people will remember Barak Obama as fundamentally a decent man. That is important to remember as we reflect back to the origins of the new new conservatism in American politics as drawn by Kathryn S. Olmstead in "Right Out of California: The 1030's and the Big Business Roots of Modern Conservatism." She makes a persuasive argument that the movers and shakers in the politics of California in Depression times were not so decent. Many were either running or in the pay of powerful corporations. Much of her book centres on the big farm strikes, the avowedly Communist organizers of the strikes, and the corporate bosses who learned over time how to squelch dissent. The big growers -- really agribusiness owned by utilities and railroads -- used racism and xenophobia to drive a wedge in the voting base to drive their agenda. For me, the most shocking revelation was how John Steinbeck sanitized his version of events in The Grapes of Wrath by removing blacks and Mexican workers from California fields. Today, almost 90 years later, Hispanics are still not getting their due in building Califormia. Donald Trump's pledge to build a wall on the Mexican border is so out of touch with reality that it begs the question: how little does America retain of its own history?
In the 1930's agribusiness wasn't opposed to Mexican labour, they simply wanted to exploit it as efficiently as possible. Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal government was lockstep with the growers. Strike organizers clipped at a very fundamental contradiction in the New Dealer's platform. On the one hand, Roosevelt took steps to level the playing field in industrial America by sanctioning the rights of industrial labourers to form unions and bargain collectively. The New Deal did not extend that right to farm labourers ostensibly because of Roosevelt's power base in the south. Instead of punishing the California growers for their treatment of farm labourers, they rewarded them with the same massive subsidies as Roosevelt was offering to the independent farmers of the Midwest.
Getting rid of the Communists proved prickly for the growers because it meant attacking the New Deal. Supporting the farm labourers proved prickly for the New Deal because it meant attacking their voter base in California on behalf of largely temporary Mexican labourers who didn't didn't vote. The Mexicans weren't the Communists. Voting Americans were Communists, as few of them as there actually were.
Unorganized the growers used extreme intimidation to dissuade the strikers. Once they got organized -- and this is going to sound familiar -- they used the media, the courts, the prisons, and American's own bias to out the "troublemakers."
At the expense of Fifth Amendment rights. At the expense of impartial courtrooms. At the expense of fairness and decency.
This book was a good read. And a particularly useful read in an era of political gridlock and the predominance of "grievance candidates" in the Republican Party.
In the 1930's agribusiness wasn't opposed to Mexican labour, they simply wanted to exploit it as efficiently as possible. Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal government was lockstep with the growers. Strike organizers clipped at a very fundamental contradiction in the New Dealer's platform. On the one hand, Roosevelt took steps to level the playing field in industrial America by sanctioning the rights of industrial labourers to form unions and bargain collectively. The New Deal did not extend that right to farm labourers ostensibly because of Roosevelt's power base in the south. Instead of punishing the California growers for their treatment of farm labourers, they rewarded them with the same massive subsidies as Roosevelt was offering to the independent farmers of the Midwest.
Getting rid of the Communists proved prickly for the growers because it meant attacking the New Deal. Supporting the farm labourers proved prickly for the New Deal because it meant attacking their voter base in California on behalf of largely temporary Mexican labourers who didn't didn't vote. The Mexicans weren't the Communists. Voting Americans were Communists, as few of them as there actually were.
Unorganized the growers used extreme intimidation to dissuade the strikers. Once they got organized -- and this is going to sound familiar -- they used the media, the courts, the prisons, and American's own bias to out the "troublemakers."
At the expense of Fifth Amendment rights. At the expense of impartial courtrooms. At the expense of fairness and decency.
This book was a good read. And a particularly useful read in an era of political gridlock and the predominance of "grievance candidates" in the Republican Party.
Read
January 11, 2016Although FDR's National Recovery Act (NRA) specifically excluded agricultural workers from unionizing, the seasonal farm workers in California didn't know that and organized and struck for higher wages and better working conditions. This left the farm and business owners apoplectic and set the tone for the rest of the century and up until today. The history of the workers, organizers, politicians, businessmen is interesting, but the most fascinating to me was the story of Caroline Decker, a union organizer who was the Cesar Chavez and Dorothy Huerta of the 1930s. Professor Olmsted finds that her story was left out of many newspaper accounts of the time, and had to dig into diaries and other accounts to find out how influential she had been.
July 22, 2024
I don't even know where to start. I underlined half the book. It talks about the difference in farming in the rest of the country and what was done in California in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They invented agribusiness and they had large industrial farms unlike most of the rest of the country where the farms were smaller and owned by the farmers. I guess the large farms were owned by individuals but many times by corporations.
Under FDR, legislation was passed to give more power to unions but farm workers and another class of workers were excluded so they could get Southern votes for the legislation. People were working full time in California fields and yet still starving to death they earned so little.
Many were Mexican but many were Americans fleeing the dust bowl.
The workers went on strike and peacefully demonstrated. Vigilante squads organized by the farm owners would break up protests by shooting and murdering strikers. Then they would blame the strikers for the violence. They controlled the government and the newspapers.
The Communists came in and started organizing because no one else was. I got the impression, most had never been to the Soviet Union and had no idea what was going on there. These, for the most part, were Americans who saw an injustice and were trying to rectify it. The workers went along with the Communist organizers because they were the only ones trying to get rights for them.
There was a team of 2 people, (husband and wife?) who basically developed all the modern right wing PR strategies. You could almost call it propaganda instead of PR because truth was in short supply.
John Steinbeck and other authors wrote about what was going on in California. He downplayed the Mexicans and played up the white Americans to make it more palatable to people in other parts of the US.
It was hard to read the book without getting angry and frustrated. Frustrated because things are better, but many of the same things are happening today. One of the book's main points is that what the politicians and corporate/agricultural elite in California learned from this about how to control things has been exported to the rest of the country and is being used to this day.
Under FDR, legislation was passed to give more power to unions but farm workers and another class of workers were excluded so they could get Southern votes for the legislation. People were working full time in California fields and yet still starving to death they earned so little.
Many were Mexican but many were Americans fleeing the dust bowl.
The workers went on strike and peacefully demonstrated. Vigilante squads organized by the farm owners would break up protests by shooting and murdering strikers. Then they would blame the strikers for the violence. They controlled the government and the newspapers.
The Communists came in and started organizing because no one else was. I got the impression, most had never been to the Soviet Union and had no idea what was going on there. These, for the most part, were Americans who saw an injustice and were trying to rectify it. The workers went along with the Communist organizers because they were the only ones trying to get rights for them.
There was a team of 2 people, (husband and wife?) who basically developed all the modern right wing PR strategies. You could almost call it propaganda instead of PR because truth was in short supply.
John Steinbeck and other authors wrote about what was going on in California. He downplayed the Mexicans and played up the white Americans to make it more palatable to people in other parts of the US.
It was hard to read the book without getting angry and frustrated. Frustrated because things are better, but many of the same things are happening today. One of the book's main points is that what the politicians and corporate/agricultural elite in California learned from this about how to control things has been exported to the rest of the country and is being used to this day.
May 22, 2021
The central thesis of this book is that contemporary conservative organizations/tactics are rooted in the class warfare in the rural California of the 1930's, that they were further refined by business leaders/groups to defeat the challenge of Upton Sinclair and his End Poverty in California movement, and would ultimately be transformed into the organizations that put Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan into office. These tactics include the adoption of the language of populism, reliance on allies in the media and entertainment industries (the politics of celebrity), corporate funding of grassroots groups, military-style intelligence gathering against political opponents, reliance on professional campaign consultants, and alliances with religious conservatives. That’s an interesting, bold thesis. So far as it is a story about institutional growth/evolution, Kathryn Olmstead fails IMHO to connect the dots. However, if we think of these basic elements of modern conservatism as memes rather than the product of a coherent process of evolution, it seems that there is a profound truth here, although it’s not exactly clear to me what it is.
In any case I found Olmsted’s narratives of farm workers, Communists, agricultural industrialists and their local allies/minions, California politics, writers and intellectuals, absolutely fascinating. I’d like to know more about the composition of the labor crews over time and by farm product. Olmsted makes frequent claims, but they are vague and ill-sourced. I’d also like to know more about the parts played by the university ag-extension service, the Farm Bureau, and the Bureau of Reclamation in the in the class warfare of rural California. Indeed, I found her story of war in the fields and courts of California a lot more interesting than her central thesis. I wish there had been more of the former, not so much of the latter, which seems rather half baked to be honest. Olmstead also tells us about the actual class war in the fields and Steinbeck’s “In Dubious Battle” and “The Grapes of Wrath,” which is great, although Olmstead’s approach to the topic seems both tendentious and excessively didactic to me.
In any case I found Olmsted’s narratives of farm workers, Communists, agricultural industrialists and their local allies/minions, California politics, writers and intellectuals, absolutely fascinating. I’d like to know more about the composition of the labor crews over time and by farm product. Olmsted makes frequent claims, but they are vague and ill-sourced. I’d also like to know more about the parts played by the university ag-extension service, the Farm Bureau, and the Bureau of Reclamation in the in the class warfare of rural California. Indeed, I found her story of war in the fields and courts of California a lot more interesting than her central thesis. I wish there had been more of the former, not so much of the latter, which seems rather half baked to be honest. Olmstead also tells us about the actual class war in the fields and Steinbeck’s “In Dubious Battle” and “The Grapes of Wrath,” which is great, although Olmstead’s approach to the topic seems both tendentious and excessively didactic to me.
October 11, 2020
The ultra-right wing Republicans we are facing now "cut their teeth" in the class warfare that rocked California in the 1930's. Young, brave members of the Communist Party organized even braver immigrant farmworkers (mostly Mexican) in the cotton fields of Northern California. Amazingly, they were able to organize some 18,000 undocumented farmworkers to go on strike. It is important to remember why the US is so anti-communist. That anti-communism even infected writers like John Steinbeck, who wrote about that strike but turned the brown workers into white characters in his novel. This book is well worth reading for lessons we need to learn, and re-learn, today.
The author does not mention that at one point 40% of the members of the U.S. Communist Party were African American. Usually bourgeois history books only talk about famous Black communists like W.E.B. DuBois and Paul Robeson and leave out the masses. The book "Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right" details how leftwing, anti-racist, working class history was systematically culled from US universities. Educators today can turn to the Zinn Education Project (recently singled out for attack by President Trump) for real, anti-racist, worker history.
The author does not mention that at one point 40% of the members of the U.S. Communist Party were African American. Usually bourgeois history books only talk about famous Black communists like W.E.B. DuBois and Paul Robeson and leave out the masses. The book "Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right" details how leftwing, anti-racist, working class history was systematically culled from US universities. Educators today can turn to the Zinn Education Project (recently singled out for attack by President Trump) for real, anti-racist, worker history.
July 7, 2021
Interesting how the playbook remains the same: when a party (the Democrats) tries to help the oppressed workers, they are effectively tarred Socialists. Amazing. Some good stuff here, particularly the chapter called Bohemians. I had no idea Langston Hughes spent years living in Carmel. But the way he was hounded out of there was ugly.
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April 9, 2024This was a great book, one of my favorites that I read it 2023. Her argument that USA conservatism largely springs out of a reaction to labor organizing of farm workers in California during the great depression is really convincing. Her writing style is clear and interesting--and it's even well edited (which seems rare for history books in general in my opinion).
October 24, 2022
Excellent addition -- even a must-read -- on 20th-century California history. Well-written, informative and -- unlike too many historical works -- it respects the reader's time by not being exhaustive. The author is a smart editor as well as a distinguished writer.
June 20, 2019
I grew up in California's conservative central valley and found this personally illuminating, but it's also a cohesive, important bit of information for our increasingly-divisive national politics.
September 1, 2016
Most of what appears in Right Out of California: The 1930's and the Big Business Roots of Modern Conservatism deals with the struggle to organize the migrant pickers of Southern California by union organizers. The ferocious and sometimes vicious backlash against this movement by the growers and owners is central to Ms. Olmstead's argument that in this battle lies the origin of the Conservative political movement as we know it today. Much of the argument she presents is extremely well researched and cogent, particularly those areas that deal with the beginning use of "political consultants", news media attack ads, and the heavy involvement of conservative women's organizations. It's easy to see the connection in these new and innovative ideas that originated in California. Although women had organized before to fight certain political ideas (e.g., Prohibition, both for and against), this movement appears to be the first time a concerted effort was made to encourage women's social groups to promote a conservative agenda. It's in other areas that the connection proposed by Ms. Olmstead is harder to see. Certainly, she makes a good argument for the radical nature of the union organizing attempts and the businessmen's attacks, but these things were not new in the 30's. Attempts to unionize mine workers, auto plants and other industries in the East were met with the same organized business rebuffs. The same Communist-led organizing took place and the union of business leaders with the police, private detectives, and reactionary government leaders also took place. If the argument that what happens first in California will soon set the pattern for the nation is true then her argument is certainly a valid one. The ability of wealthy business people, growers, and right wing politicians to unite and form anti-union blocks is something modern readers are familiar with.
Right Out of California... is a fascinating look at a specific time of labor unrest and changing mores. The rabid anti-Communist attacks and the appalling conditions in the "factory farms" of 1930's California make interesting reading. So also do the stories of John Steinbeck's involvement and the writing of both In Dubious Battle and The Grapes of Wrath and Upton Sinclair's run for Governor with the EPIC program. Ms. Olmstead has done an incredible amount of research and a good job of combining very good history in an easy to read format.
Right Out of California... is a fascinating look at a specific time of labor unrest and changing mores. The rabid anti-Communist attacks and the appalling conditions in the "factory farms" of 1930's California make interesting reading. So also do the stories of John Steinbeck's involvement and the writing of both In Dubious Battle and The Grapes of Wrath and Upton Sinclair's run for Governor with the EPIC program. Ms. Olmstead has done an incredible amount of research and a good job of combining very good history in an easy to read format.
May 9, 2016
This is a fantastic survey of the development of corporate power during the Great Depression until today. Although I'd argue that businesses have always had an outsized influence on American democracy, Olmsted does a fantastic job tracing the specific kind of excess and political experimentation that corporations undertook in the 1930s (and a bit into the 40s). Her review also helps fill the gaps between other histories/stories about the role of corporations in California, and national, politics (e.g., The Grapes of Wrath, The King of California: J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire, Oil!). Olmsted makes a significant contribution to help readers reframe how we think about California's (political) development, and she's done tremendous work marshaling data to paint a very human picture of labor struggles during the 30s.
But the best part of this book is that it is extremely accessible and well-told. Often histories like this can be crazy dense and boring. Olmsted strikes the right balance between engaging simplicity and incisive analysis. The combination is part saga, part historiography, and entirely a pleasure to read.
Finally, in an effort at irreverence, I have to confess that I love that this book reinforces my California jingoism, because I'm the kind of Californian that believes that the world revolves around my state (I'm mostly joking, but not that much). We're often told that the West inherited the frameworks and legacies seeded in the East, but Olmsted provides a clear view of the distinctions in inequality in the (American) West.
But the best part of this book is that it is extremely accessible and well-told. Often histories like this can be crazy dense and boring. Olmsted strikes the right balance between engaging simplicity and incisive analysis. The combination is part saga, part historiography, and entirely a pleasure to read.
Finally, in an effort at irreverence, I have to confess that I love that this book reinforces my California jingoism, because I'm the kind of Californian that believes that the world revolves around my state (I'm mostly joking, but not that much). We're often told that the West inherited the frameworks and legacies seeded in the East, but Olmsted provides a clear view of the distinctions in inequality in the (American) West.
March 11, 2016
Well... first off, I don't read nonfiction often. I read this book to do a book review on for my Historical Analysis class. Thankfully this was an interesting read. Had I not been seeking to answer specific questions I might have enjoyed it more.
This book's purpose I believe was to talk about the labor disputes and how it shaped American politics today. The book does go into depth with that but, I felt she occasionally had tangents.
-Did we need to know about Communist party member's backgrounds in order to understand Growers political views? no.
-Was John Steinbeck a huge contributor to anything this book dealt with? Not as much as the author brought him up. In fact she kept repeating and repeating the same story about him talking to Chambers yet, I still don't see the how it supported her thesis.
-Did the Red Scare need to be that talked about? Yes, but I think she could have included it in the intro or explained more about because of the 1930s the 1960s Red Scare was as bad as it was.
-Also, I'm so tired of hearing about Hoover who, like Steinbeck, was brought up way too much.
Interesting read though.
Recommend to people who live in California, have an interest in labor, or trying out a nonfiction book. Was a pretty easy read and the author gives you characters (with background and details) to cheer on and many chapter ending 'cliffhangers.'
This book's purpose I believe was to talk about the labor disputes and how it shaped American politics today. The book does go into depth with that but, I felt she occasionally had tangents.
-Did we need to know about Communist party member's backgrounds in order to understand Growers political views? no.
-Was John Steinbeck a huge contributor to anything this book dealt with? Not as much as the author brought him up. In fact she kept repeating and repeating the same story about him talking to Chambers yet, I still don't see the how it supported her thesis.
-Did the Red Scare need to be that talked about? Yes, but I think she could have included it in the intro or explained more about because of the 1930s the 1960s Red Scare was as bad as it was.
-Also, I'm so tired of hearing about Hoover who, like Steinbeck, was brought up way too much.
Interesting read though.
Recommend to people who live in California, have an interest in labor, or trying out a nonfiction book. Was a pretty easy read and the author gives you characters (with background and details) to cheer on and many chapter ending 'cliffhangers.'
April 2, 2016
Interesting historical look at how labor uprisings in the 1930s led to much of the modern conservative movement. Especially paired with One Nation Under God, which I just finished, it paints an interesting picture as to how our politics have gotten to where they are now, much of which was a reaction to the New Deal and labor fights in the 1930s.
July 26, 2016
Good history
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews