| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Coast of Dreams: California on the Edge, 1990– 2003. By Kevin Starr. (New York: Knopf, 2004. xiv, 765 pp. $35.00, ISBN 0-679-412883.)
This is the final book in Kevin Starr's seven-volume California series. He continues to practice history as a literary art. But the thirteen years he describes, with their postmodern complexities, has resulted in a rather racy narrative.	1
The story begins with a heavy dose of optimism. At first, Starr, as in his earlier volumes, sees California as a lingering land of hope and promise, indeed, a "radiant golden vision" (p. xii). Then his mood shifts, becoming alarmingly dark. Tarnishing the allure of California as a workers' paradise have been its riots, recessions, and serious budgetary mistakes. Starr seems to have been heavily influenced by Mike Davis's City of Quartz (1998), a distortive neo-Marxist view of a doomed Los Angeles (pp. 125–26, 235, 385–86, 554).	. . .

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