Product details
Highly readable....The book is full of surprises, it is constantly challenging....A fine performance.
Pacific Historical Review
[Starr] is bringing much to Western social and literary history.
American Historical Review
One devil of a fine book, a book only a native Californian could write...about the Inner Life of California, the psychic landscape that emerges from the works and ways of her writers, both native and self-adopted. The result is a mature, well-proportioned and marvelously diverse (and diverting) study.
The New York Times Book Review
A very important book.
Joseph H. Krause, California State University, Long Beach
Indispensable...Starr's book does for California what Henry Nash Smith's 'Virgin Land' did for the opening of the West: it demonstrates how idea, myth, misconception and hope shaped and often distorted a developing society.
Los Angeles Times
A vivid portrayal of the rich and varied intellectual forces which helped shape one of our most distinctive regional cultures.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
An exceptional work, both in thought and magnitude....Both scholars and laymen will find this volume a worthwhile addition to their libraries.
History: Reviews of New Books
A highly original inquiry into the interplay of vision and event.'
Virginia Quarterly Review
A captivating narrative that documents the importance of myth and imagination in attracting Americans to California before World War I.
R.H. Limbaugh, University of the Pacific