"Where I Was From" by Joan Didion

"Where I Was From" is a book by Joan Didion that walks the reader through a history of the white settlement of California. She starts by giving a background of various family members travels from the East, accross the nation into the unsettled California. Her family has a much longer, richer history than most. The book also dissects different regions and municipalities including Sacremento, the Central Valley and Lakewood. She manages to show the connections between race riots and real estate crashes to the pulling of federal funding in the aerospace industry in a revelatory way. It was a fascinating dive into the way indiviual dreams drove the of agriculture, real estate, local and federal fiscal policy, and the true nature of the California dream, from the gold rush, oil mining, water allocation, and industrial ebbs and flows. Didion showed me in depth research, well thought out thematic mapping and educational background on a topic few people truly grasp.