Coast of dreams : a history of contemporary California

Coast of Dreams is an astonishingly rich, thoughtful, entertaining and horrifying account of one of the most mesmerising places on earth.

Kevin Starr's marvellous new book allows its readers both to revel in the Californian oddness but also to see the magic that has drawn in millions of people like bodybuilder-turned actor-turned-Govenor Schwarzenegger.

The success that has made California into one of the world's biggest economies and its great generator of culture and ideas has not been cost free however and the picture that emerges from Coast of Dreams is a troubled one.

Contemporary Californians are caught in the middle of a period of transformation where the state struggles to understand the diversity of its people, the confusions of its values and customs and the loss of one California and the ambiguous imposition of a new and uncharted identity.