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California: A History
Since its original publication, Andrew Rolle's classic work has been enjoyed by more than 100,000 persons, students and general readers alike. Like its predecessors, the seventh edition of California: A History recounts the state's history from its origins to the present in an engaging manner, while seeking a balance between conflicting viewpoints. Today especially, Californians face severe implications of the state's overwhelming diversity and continuing population explosion. This seventh edition incorporates these dramatic new developments in a historical context, pondering implications for the future. Likewise, those sections of the book devoted to women, the environment, immigration (legal and illegal), crime, sports, energy, and transportation have all been expanded. The most obvious change to this edition is the addition of Arthur Verge as coauthor, and loyal users will be delighted to see the addition of many new photographs that also help keep our "classic" text vibrant and current.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
449 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 19, 2017
Needs more than a shave.
Anyone who wants to really know California's history will read Kevin Starr's multi-volume pageant. But thousands of pages might be too long, and so here's where Rolle's California: A History comes in. Basically, it's a textbook that mostly eschews the trappings of textbooks: full color pictures, charts, pulls-out sections and highlighted important information.
Rolle claims in the introductory matter, though, that he hopes the book has a wider readership than students. It's hard to see why that would be the case, though. There's no overarching narrative holding the book together, but rather its organized according to fairly conventional historical categories. Chapters are sometimes short and feel forced into the book and to get across some material important to a test, but otherwise confounding in its connection o the rest of the story.
The prose is mostly serviceable, but it's also clear that some of the sentences have been written to highlight particular information that, again, will be on a test. (Pull-out sections that are not pulled out.) By the end, the narrative gets increasingly diffuse, since it's not clear what Rolle wants to say overall, and the conventional categories have not yet hardened.
this is a late edition of the book, and Rolle is trying to keep up with current scholarship, but its hard to just shave off some of the more bewhiskered components and prevent it as fresh. The structure itself is rooted in old-fashioned historical categories. Rolle gives some pride of place to native Americans, but pretty much after the end of the Mission period, they just become a force that whites need to overcome, or ways that whites proved their bravery. Black history and women history is shoe-horned into various parts of the story, but do not fundamentally reconfigure understanding of historical elements. It's more a case of, hey, there were black and women, too.
Writings about the labor movement are odd. They emphasize the violence perpetrated by anarchists and other activists, but since this story is separated from the story of corruption in California, the violence mostly seems pointless, and Rolle editorializes that violent labor agitation because Californians preferred peace--even as there continued to be violence against Asian and Mexican immigrants.
There are some good episodes here, and when Rolle is just telling the story of some particular historical episode, one gathers he was probably a well-liked college professor. But the many parts do not add up to a whole book.
Anyone who wants to really know California's history will read Kevin Starr's multi-volume pageant. But thousands of pages might be too long, and so here's where Rolle's California: A History comes in. Basically, it's a textbook that mostly eschews the trappings of textbooks: full color pictures, charts, pulls-out sections and highlighted important information.
Rolle claims in the introductory matter, though, that he hopes the book has a wider readership than students. It's hard to see why that would be the case, though. There's no overarching narrative holding the book together, but rather its organized according to fairly conventional historical categories. Chapters are sometimes short and feel forced into the book and to get across some material important to a test, but otherwise confounding in its connection o the rest of the story.
The prose is mostly serviceable, but it's also clear that some of the sentences have been written to highlight particular information that, again, will be on a test. (Pull-out sections that are not pulled out.) By the end, the narrative gets increasingly diffuse, since it's not clear what Rolle wants to say overall, and the conventional categories have not yet hardened.
this is a late edition of the book, and Rolle is trying to keep up with current scholarship, but its hard to just shave off some of the more bewhiskered components and prevent it as fresh. The structure itself is rooted in old-fashioned historical categories. Rolle gives some pride of place to native Americans, but pretty much after the end of the Mission period, they just become a force that whites need to overcome, or ways that whites proved their bravery. Black history and women history is shoe-horned into various parts of the story, but do not fundamentally reconfigure understanding of historical elements. It's more a case of, hey, there were black and women, too.
Writings about the labor movement are odd. They emphasize the violence perpetrated by anarchists and other activists, but since this story is separated from the story of corruption in California, the violence mostly seems pointless, and Rolle editorializes that violent labor agitation because Californians preferred peace--even as there continued to be violence against Asian and Mexican immigrants.
There are some good episodes here, and when Rolle is just telling the story of some particular historical episode, one gathers he was probably a well-liked college professor. But the many parts do not add up to a whole book.
August 25, 2023
A bit too Text Booky for me
I moved to California a number of years ago and it has always been on my wish list to develop a better understanding of the state and its history. I finally got around to it when I came across this book at my local library. It is a text book and I felt like I was back at school - but I learned things, one of which is there more literature out there that I should read. Having visited many of the towns and cities that make up the state, it was interesting to put their stories into a historical perspective, particularly in the context of its Mexican history.
There are probably less text-bookish works out there but this book covers the highs and lows of the Golden State thoroughly.
I moved to California a number of years ago and it has always been on my wish list to develop a better understanding of the state and its history. I finally got around to it when I came across this book at my local library. It is a text book and I felt like I was back at school - but I learned things, one of which is there more literature out there that I should read. Having visited many of the towns and cities that make up the state, it was interesting to put their stories into a historical perspective, particularly in the context of its Mexican history.
There are probably less text-bookish works out there but this book covers the highs and lows of the Golden State thoroughly.
Read
June 22, 2020Read for History of California
November 30, 2015
*I read the 7th ed., not 8th.*
I really enjoyed this survey of CA history—very informative, highly readable and enjoyable. Short chapters, which are nice for short attention spans. I only wished it had footnotes or endnotes for the citations, instead of simply providing reference lists. Clearly the author knows his stuff; but I don’t, so I would really have appreciated those notes, even if they had blown up the size of the book. Other than that, excellent read.
I really enjoyed this survey of CA history—very informative, highly readable and enjoyable. Short chapters, which are nice for short attention spans. I only wished it had footnotes or endnotes for the citations, instead of simply providing reference lists. Clearly the author knows his stuff; but I don’t, so I would really have appreciated those notes, even if they had blown up the size of the book. Other than that, excellent read.
September 3, 2016
I'm new to California and this was a good book to give a general overview of the state. Each chapter is written like an independent story. So you get the story of California, but don't have a cohesive narrative. At the end of each chapter are several great references if you are looking for more information on one topic or another.
August 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews