California Dreaming: Society and Culture in the Golden State
Ebook
Overview
California matters, both as a place and as an idea. What famed historian Kevin Starr has called “the California Dream” is a vital part of American self-understanding. Just as America was meant to be a place of renewal, even redemption, for Europe, so too California was intended as a place of renewal for America. Therefore, California--place and idea--provides a fertile ground for scholars to think deeply about what it means to articulate “the promise of American life.” This book follows in the train of George Marsden’s classic The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship--believing that people of faith have a contribution to make to scholarship--and of Jay Green’s more recent book, Christian Historiography: Five Rival Views--believing that scholars of faith should engage in moral inquiry. In this book, eight authors inquire into the moral questions that emerge from studying California.
“This superb collection demonstrates how much fresh historical
insight can be gained by careful examination of a single state in
the USA. The book’s particular virtue is to show how a
theological interpretive framework illuminates questions of race,
urbanization, the environment, immigration, and more. The
individual essays are penetrating, the entire effect superb.”
—Mark Noll, University of Notre Dame
“Anyone with a curiosity about California will find matters to
savor in this engaging volume. The essays reflect the moral
seriousness of their authors and also offer accessible windows to
contemplate some of the many diversities of a truly remarkable
state.”
—George M. Marsden, University of Notre Dame
“The eclectic essays of California Dreaming give
us glimpses of what has made the place coveted land and contested
ground over the past two centuries. Filled with vibrant
personalities and causes as diverse as the state itself, the
stories told here remind us of the ongoing value of
reflections—both historical and moral—upon the California
experience.”
—Richard Pointer, Westmont College
“As a resident of another border state, Texas, that is as much an
idea as a place, I appreciate how California serves as a reflection
in micro of what America itself can or should mean. This book
inspires that sort of reflection and is, therefore, useful and of
interest to anyone hoping to come to grips with questions of place
and meaning in a postmodern era.”
—Barry Hankins, Baylor University
“California, for good and perhaps not always for good, has been the
beacon of America’s future for a century and a half. Yet there
are many Californias, and they lead us in different
directions. In this thought-provoking book, eight Christian
scholars engage the past and the present, north and south, race and
gender, politics, and the landscape itself. Throughout, they
pursue not an agenda but a moral perspective. There is much
here to delight the mind.”
—Paul Spickard, University of California, Santa Barbara
Product Details
- Title : California Dreaming: Society and Culture in the Golden State
- Author: Wells, Ronald A.
- Publisher: Pickwick Publications
- Publication Date: 2017
- ISBN: 9781532602399