Title: California and the Fictions of Capital / Edition 1
Author: George Henderson
ISBN-10: 1592131980
ISBN-13: 9781592131983
Between the frequently recounted events of the Gold Rush and the Great Depression stretches a period of California history that is equally crucial but less often acknowledged. In his fresh, synthetic consideration of these in-between years, George L. Henderson points specifically to the take-off of California’s rural juggernaut between the 1880s and middle 1920s – the upward spiral of city bids for country dollars and rural bids for urban investments. These decades were salve for mining’s risky finances yet ground-work for the chaotic 1930s. Moreover, Henderson argues that much like the two important periods which framed it, this era produced a cultural and literary apparatus that attempted to grapple with capital’s machinations, if only to legitimate them in the end. In part a tour of California as a virtual laboratory for refining the circulation of capital, and in part an investigation of how the state’s literati, with rare exception, reconceived economy in the name of class, gender, and racial privilege, this study will appeal to all students and scholars of California’s – and the American West’s – economic, environmental, and cultural past.
