Kevin Starr Photo by Jessica Marple

Issue: Winter 2005

California: A Historian

Although Kevin Starr has written more than a million words about the mercurial 31st state, he clearly has not lost his passion for the subject.

Starr – professor of history in USC College, state librarian emeritus and arguably California's leading historian – has just published his 12th book about the Golden State, which he has dedicated to USC’s Kathryn and Steven Sample. In it, he describes California in vivid detail starting in 1533, when Spanish explorers landed on what they mistook for an island. A few years later, they named it California after the mythical gold- and gem-laden island Garci Ordonez de Montalvo described in his 1510 romance bestseller, Las Sergas de Esplandian.

Starr’s one-volume history – which he calls “a 100-yard dash through California’s history” – ends during another watershed moment for the El Dorado state – May 2005, when Los Angeles city councilman Antonio Villaraigosa was elected the city’s first Hispanic mayor since Cristobal Aguilar left office in 1872.

Currently, he’s working on the last installment in his seven-volume series “Americans and the California Dream,” published by Oxford University Press. That one will describe the state from 1950 to 1963, ending, Starr says, “just before the civil rights movement when the world changed.”

For a history buff thirsty for knowledge, but who doesn’t want to read volumes, California: A History is a tall glass of water – or a glass of milk and honey, if you wish. Throughout its 342 pages, Starr doesn’t try to mask his enthusiasm. He’s relieved, for example, when the Spanish Crown in 1765 finally makes a decision about Alta California after mulling it over for 70 years.

Nor does he pull punches when describing the first Spanish settlers’ violence against the culture and human rights of the indigenous people. He also doesn’t shy from addressing the early Spanish soldiers’ sexual exploitation of Native American women.

“As a historian,” he says, “you have got to tell the truth.”

– Pamela Johnson