....California historian known to me, with his pithy style, his endlessly fascinating observations, and his anecdotes, rich in history and amusing in detail, which unlike the rivers of my state flow one after the other without any damming. I'm a native of Southern California, and I have yet to find a better book on this territory even though this one was originally penned in the late 40's.

The colonizers, the boosters, the flamboyant pillars of society who bamboozled, bulldozed, and boutiqued their way into California: they and other characters appear on the McWilliams stage in a fascinating--and at times disturbing--progression in which the land itself, that most neglected of characters, puts in appearances too. For we Southern Californians live in a land of constant paradoxes; to quote the author ("The Land of Upside Down"):

"To their amazement"--he means tourists--"they discovered that umbrellas were useless against the drenching rains of Southern California but that they made good shade in the summer; that many of the beautifully colored flowers had no scent; that fruit ripened earlier in the northern than in the southern part of the state; that it was hot in the morning and cool at noon...here, in this paradoxical land, rats lived in the trees and squirrels had their homes in the ground." No wonder we're all a bit topsy-turvy out here.

My one objection: I disagree with the author's description of the early Missions as "concentration camps." That through disease and, later, a mis-education that left the Native converts vulnerable to ranchero exploitation and settler genocide is beyond question; but however misguided their efforts, those early padres had no conscious agenda of wiping out a people. Nevertheless, McWilliams's detailed accounts of Mission life provide a much-needed antidote to the idealization and denial and Eurocentric bias that saturate most Mission histories.

If you want to know Southern California better, then of course you must stand on her soil and listen to her voices; but you could do much worse for an intro-at-a-distance than this fine book, which fellow natives will find confirming and eye-opening.

For all residents of Southern California past, present, or potential, there can be no better book about this unmatchable part of the world. Past residents (like myself) will sigh with fond remembrance, current residents will be amused, and potential future residents will be astonished. All will be entertained. The land, the geography, the history, and the weather. They're all discussed. The social outcasts, the wierd misfits, the kooks, the characters, and their schemes and dreams. It's all here, along with so very much more. Written by a longtime resident in a very entertaining style that combines dinner conversation with classroom lecture, this book will be a joy to anyone who has a love for the irreplacable experience of Living In Southern California. You will truly FEEL as though you are there. This book is one for the heart as well as the mind. Oh Los Angeles, how I miss you. Carey McWilliams, thanks for taking me back.

Originally published in 1946, McWilliams describes the socio-historical and economic formations of Southern California from the "bottom up" in a way uncharacteristic for his time period. He unveils the racist, eurocentric, environmentally devastating, materialistic and otherwise ruthless basis for the area's hegemonic culture, economy, and social relations. Moreover, he adds great insight into the incorporation of California into the world capitalist system. He covers the use, abuse, and devastation of various peoples in the area including Native Americans, Californios, Chinese, Japanese, Oklahomans and Mexicans. He also offers insight into the materialism or 'fake' culture which has emerged from the area only to exploit the cultures it has destroyed. The book is a bit long winded at times, but overall is a must read for anyone intersted in the topics I've described. It would be of interest to anyone who appreciates Almaguer's Racial Faultlines, Pitt's The Californios, or even Montejano's Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas.

That is how California's emergence is described by the exemplary Carey McWilliams, journalist, social critic, and keen observer of all things Californian.

The book is dated: it was written in '49 and lightly updated in '74 and centers primarily on San Francisco and Los Angeles. It is a measure of McWilliams' penetrating and witty grasp of the state and its foibles, follies, and fandangos that most of what he wrote is still so relevant and even indispensable.

McWilliams' central premise is that the discovery of gold catapulted California through what took other regions of the planet centuries to go through--hence our individualism, do-it-yourself lifestyles, and general motion and mayhem. We've been doing reenactments of the Gold Rush ever since. As he puts it: "Essentially California developed 'outside' the framework, the continuum, of the American frontier. The difference is that between a child raised in the home of his parents, with relatives and familiar surroundings, and the child taken from his home at an early age and brought up in a remote and different environment." Quite so. In a nation of wandering pioneers we are largely, even now, somehow a state of orphans.

California as "the great exception," then, not in terms of snobbery or entitlement, but of being the place where so many Americans--and men from other countries--rushed in to pan for gold, and stayed, and established a tradition of messy but vital cultural infusions. Tip the continent sideways, someone once said, and what falls down lands in California, land of wonder and many griffins.

You might also want to check out McWilliams' SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: AN ISLAND ON THE LAND.

An excellent book for anyone interested in California History, US History, the Great Depression or the history of corporate agriculture. Originally released the same year as Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, McWilliams' book relates the history of not only migrant farm labor in California, but the corporate farm as well. Having included extensive background on California's 19th Century land grab, McWilliams presents a comprehensive look at corporate agriculture, including its effect on various labor groups and the economy of the State of California. Written with a definite bias toward the underdog (the migrant worker), Factories in the Field nevertheless provides the reader with an understanding of the beginnings of corporate economy in California and its true beginnings in agriculture, including an explanation of the power of the ag growers--a political hot potato that continues in the state today.

Those looking for an uplifting read need to look elsewhere; Bulosan's "America..." reads like a laundry list of suffering and hopelessness. Bulosan writes powerfully, compellingly and beatifully, but he would have been better off sticking to his own story instead of trying to create a composite.

With tragedy so frequently present nowadays, it doesn't seem hard to believe that Bulosan's protagonist would experience so much tragedy (extreme poverty, deaths, heartbreak in every sense of the word, a severely debilitating disease, etc., etc.). A closer reading reveals that he has indeed created a composite, mashing the numerous hard-luck stories of the Filipino migrant workers of that time into a single person's life. It is difficult to believe, but if you can get beyond that fact, "America..." proves a depressing read with important historical weight, chronicling the ups and mostly downs of the Filipino migrant, with a progression from childhood to the life's winding down phase.

I lent this book to my grandfather, who lived at approximately the same time, and could very well have been in the provincial areas, practicing the customs Bulosan described. It was extremely disappointing but enlightening to have him give the book a thumbs down based on accuracy. Many descriptions of the hardships of not only Bulosan but those around him, particularly in the Philippines, were much too tragic for my grandfather to take, although he had suffered plenty in his childhood.

Often in writing stories, reality is much more interesting than fiction; by trying to unrealistically include everyone's experiences as one individual's trial does create an unbelievable tale, that will be even more difficult for those unaccustomed to the goings-on and atmosphere of a third-world country.

Bulosan's work is important as it is one of the select pieces of Filipino-American literature that has made the rounds in universities and literary circles, and that it covers an often forgotten group and struggle in American history. However, his attempt to create an all-encompassing experience within a single character is his downfall. A read recommended with a grain of salt.

This book is an essential read for those who wish to learn more about the various Asian ethnic groups that have shaped America in the early 20th century. Carlos Bulosan, in this autobiography, describes his days of hunger, pain, loneliness, joy, whimsy and fantasy in "big brother's" country, America, with fellow Filipino "manongs" and sometimes not-so-friendly Americans. This book will touch your heart and make any Filipino-American remember and appreciate his or her roots.

You're a filipino...living in your own house, free to walk your suburbian streets, free to go to any school you wish, free to work in an office, free to interact with anyone you please...but you're not in the Philippines. Have you ever thought about the struggle of your previous generations in order to have this freedom you often neglect? This book is an awakening of spirit and will command your heart to appreciate what Carlos Bulosan and those like him suffered for. All filipinos living in a foreign land MUST READ this great work! And then, ask yourself how can you be a better citizen, a better human being and how much do you respect those around you? At recent times it may be hard to fully understand why being a filipino is a blessing. This book will provide you with a reason to be proud of your heritage and will make you remember forever that you are a free filipino.

I don't think this book is quite sound. I would highly recommend Professor Ralph H. Vigil's book "Spain and Plains;Myths and Realities of Spanish Exploration and Settlement on the Great Plains"

I really take issue with the dismissive review of the reader from Washington, I think they missed the point. This book was written in the late 40's as a response to the Zootsuit murders which brought to the attention of the American people the marginalized situation of Chicano people. McWilliams pieced together the little that was known about the history of the settlement of the southwest by Spanish subjects who were mainly people of mixed descent in order to establish that these people were not "immigrants" but rather more native to the land than the Anglo population. The mixture of history, sociology, and news was ahead of its time, making it accessible to people from different backgrounds. I think it was a wonderful example of the gritty style of American writers that has been lost in our times where passion has no place in the public sphere.

I first read McWilliams book in the 1960s. It put into persepective the contribution of my heritage and explained how my family's origins differed from the expanse of "Hispanics" that came later to populate various aspects of the United States.

McWilliams understood the contribution and the resulting plight early on, before the Civil Rights movement, before Ceasar Chavez. McWillaims did us all a favor by not becoming the outside spokesman for what developed as a cause that he understood and elequently outlined in history and in ethic.

First of all, it should be said that Best makes a good argument for the electoral college in that it upholds the federalist principle, and that we are not a direct democracy, but a democratic federal republic, but this is the extent to which she's right.

She argues that the "will of the people isn't always the will of the numerical majority." By that she means that a candidate should have a broad base of support, not just run up votes in one region. This is why, she argues, that a direct head count vote system wouldn't work. But this is what we have in each state to determine who gets the electoral votes. She's basically saying it works in one area, but not the other. She also fails to mention that in our current system, a candidate would only have to win a plurality in the 11 largest states to get an Electoral College majority. This is not a broad base of support.

She also comes up with these nightmare scenarios about all the third party and single issue candidates that would pop up if we didn't have the Electoral College. Everything she argues is protected by this country's two party system, not the Electoral College. After all, the Electoral College doesn't vote for Congressional or gubernatorial races and there aren't many third parties that flood those elections.

Finally, she claims that a candidate could only win the popular vote and not the electoral vote if they didn't have a broad base of support, which after 2000, we know isn't true. So after all the hot air she lets off, it's all for nothing...history did not vindicate Judith Best.

Everything anyone could ever want to know about the debate to change the U.S. Presidential election system from the present Electoral College to an all-national popular election. Dr. Best presents the arguments others have written against the Electoral College before explaining why those arguments are incorrect. Her defense of the Electoral College is witty, concise, and well explained. A must read for anyone interested in American politics and government.

I hate to say critical things about one of my favorite California historians, but you're better off with any of his other books. This, written as a kind of memoir, spends more time on historical events in the US than it does on Carey. Another problem is his recurrent pointing out of how he foresaw certain events and was not surprised by others--it reads as though he feels he hasn't been given enough credit (which he hasn't) and must bring his foresightedness to the reader's attention. Maybe he was old and lonely when he wrote this, but in any case it's not of his usual calibre. Clearly written, though.

Dr. Lowi says we need a third party - a three-party system, that is - when America is loaded with third parties. Dr. Romance, on the other hand, says that the only problem is the recent one, "gridlock," and that the solution is "reform." Interestingly, although Lowi acknowledges that what America now has in the Democrat/Republican combine is a "duopoly," neither essayist proceeds on that assumption. Lowi keeps calling for a third party when the need under duopoly would be for a second, not third, party. And Romance takes us back to various won't-work remedies, all in an effort to "reform" a non-existent two-party system. However, the book does give a valuable look - flaws and all - at Partyism, a strange creature in itself, and I would recommend it.

This book skirts some of the main,interesting aspects of the Constitution and opts to pursue a very narrowly defined notion of civil society. Great for outdated Artistotelians, but it's a barely justifiable read for anyone truly interested in a multi-perspective examination of the document. It's a very 50s take on things.