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All star cast: An anecdotal history of Los Angeles
History of Los Angeles.
379 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1977
10 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Longstreet
252 books5 followersStephen Longstreet was a prolific novelist, screenwriter, cartoonist, and artist whose work ranged in subject from gourmet cookbooks to potboiler detective novels to portraits of American jazz greats. He published over 100 books in his lifetime, including the novel The Sisters Liked them Handsome, which was turned into a successful Broadway musical. Longstreet also wrote screenplays that would go on to star Hollywood greats from Ronald Reagan to Errol Flynn.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 26, 2013
There are plenty of history books about major American cities. Because Los Angeles sprawls, its history is especially tricky to encapsulate between two covers, but Stephen Longstreet gets it exactly right!
He manages to work it all in, from the earliest days of Indians who get abused by Missionaries and Mexicans, to the Gold Rush, Statehood, and then the infinite waves of ethnicities that stake their claim, from Anglos to Chinese, Japanese, Blacks, everybody. He explains the politics of each era with colorful anecdotes galore. LA's early history is surprisingly bloody and violent; through the use of anecdotes, this book manages to explain that anger without turning the reader away. Instead, we lured in further.
Perhaps best of all, Longstreet does it without cranking out another coffee table book of photos! His prose fills our heads with imagery, bringing more depth to the experience than we can ever gain from those countless oversized picture books.
Highly recommended.
He manages to work it all in, from the earliest days of Indians who get abused by Missionaries and Mexicans, to the Gold Rush, Statehood, and then the infinite waves of ethnicities that stake their claim, from Anglos to Chinese, Japanese, Blacks, everybody. He explains the politics of each era with colorful anecdotes galore. LA's early history is surprisingly bloody and violent; through the use of anecdotes, this book manages to explain that anger without turning the reader away. Instead, we lured in further.
Perhaps best of all, Longstreet does it without cranking out another coffee table book of photos! His prose fills our heads with imagery, bringing more depth to the experience than we can ever gain from those countless oversized picture books.
Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 of 1 review