Southern California: An Island on the Land

From the Back Cover

Widely recognized as the best non-fiction book written about Southern California for the period 1920s through the 1940s.
Southern California: An Island on the Land is packed with fascinating material on the region and its galaxy of personalities--from Helen Hunt Jackson to Aimee Semple McPherson, from Huntington the financier to Hatfield the rainmaker.
Carey McWilliams provides insights into many subjects, ranging from the origins of Hollywood to the flowering of International Style architecture in Los Angeles.
This book was originally published in 1946. This reprint edition has been continuously in print from Gibbs Smith, Publisher since 1973.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction
If years before I wrote Southern California: An Island on the Land, I had planned to write it, then it could be said that I picked exactly the right time to settle in the region, that my work experience was providential, and that I selected precisely the right group of friends. But of course I did not plan to write the book; it grew out of my experiences in a perfectly natural way. Let me explain.