New Directions in California History: A Book of Readings

by James J. Rawls

This reader is designed for the history of California course taught in history and some Political Science departments in colleges and universities throughout California. Organized chronologically, the book covers a wide range of topics in the social, political, cultural and economic history of the state. -- (Softcover)

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0070512531
• ISBN13: 9780070512535
• Release Date: February 1988
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Langua
• Length: 399 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Surprisingly interesting for a text

This book is an excellent companion to Rawls/Bean's "California, An Interpretive History", and may very well stand on its own for those interested in the topic. It is a collection of writings from a variety of historians on different topics relevant to California History. Each section is fairly short, surprisingly well written and engaging, for a History text, and best of all, well-documented. A common concern these days is the idea of "revisionist history". Each of these sections follows an Editor's Introduction, which not only offers the author's credentials in the topic, but the source materials they used to derive their conclusions. The text clearly designates cases where the source materials, while first hand accounts, could still contain bias or inaccuracy. In cases where the author himself may show bias in the topic, the introduction points out this bias, but also makes a case for why that bias may be relevant overall.