Chaucer’s Talk on the University of California

Sunday, November 1 4:00 PM

Chaucer’s Books (3321 State Street)  hosts Miriam Pawel for a book talk and signing of California Dreams: The Making and Remaking of the University of California. Joining the author in conversation is UCSB Professor Emeritus Richard Flacks. 

Description

“Essential reading.”- KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR

 “A must read.”- KAI BIRD

 “In a time of terminal cynicism, Pawel gives us hope.”- JERRY BROWN

Pulitzer Prize winner Miriam Pawel’s epic history of one of the world’s elite public universities, its sweeping social impact, and hopeful lessons about endurance in troubled times.

Distinguished by its founding mission as an engine of upward mobility, the University of California-a constitutionally independent public trust-is a great American experiment that has persevered through fraught battles over access, funding, and leadership.

The University has been at the nexus of nearly every public policy debate and social movement since the Civil War, from women’s rights to student protests, from academic freedom to affirmative action, shaping policies that reverberate throughout the United States.

California Dreams narrates UC’s rise and resilience through the lens of those whose lives it has transformed-in particular, five pioneering graduates whose diverse paths underscore why the University remains, in the words of Berkeley graduate Joan Didion, “California’s best idea of itself.”

At a time of staggering inequality and uncertainty, as higher education faces unprecedented threats, that role has never been more crucial. Drawing on extensive research in ten archives and dozens of interviews, California Dreams weaves together the linked history of the school and state in all its drama, significance, and humanity; the result is a magisterial narrative of both a remarkable public institution of higher education, and also California itself.

About the Author

Miriam Pawel is the author of The Browns of California, winner of the California Book Award Gold Medal; The Crusades of Cesar Chavez, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; and The Union of Their Dreams. A Pulitzer Prize–winning editor and reporter, she spent twenty-five years at Newsday and the Los Angeles Times. For this book, she was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar Fellowship and was named a fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. She lives in Southern California.

Praise for the Book

“The roiling history of a ‘multiversity.’ Drawing on extensive archival sources, memoirs, and interviews, Pawel recounts the birth, rise, and ongoing transformations of the ‘ten campuses, six health centers, three national laboratories, and hundreds of programs and research centers’ that comprise the University of California…Recent assaults on higher education make California’s story newly relevant. A timely, sweeping examination of a major institution of higher education.” —Kirkus (starred review)

“A powerful and inspiring history of one of America’s greatest public institutions. Miriam Pawel shows how the University of California helped shape not only a state, but generations of lives. Essential reading for anyone who believes in the transformative power of education.” —Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, UCLA Grad 1969, Recipient of UCLA Medal (1997) and the UC Presidential Medal (2024)

“In California Dreams, Miriam Pawel tells the unbelievable story of the University of California and how it overcame parochialism and prejudice to transform itself–decade by decade–into a multi-ethnic engine of intellectual advancement and economic opportunity. In a time of terminal cynicism, Pawel gives us hope.” —Jerry Brown, former governor of California

“In California Dreams, her impressively researched, gracefully written history of the University of California, Miriam Pawel reminds us of the indispensable contributions American public universities have made and, one hopes, will continue to make to the health, vitality, and resilience of this nation and its peoples.” —David Nasaw, Bancroft Prize winner and two-time Pulitzer finalist

“Miriam Pawel knows California like few other writers. California Dreams is a fascinating biography of the University of California, a $50 billion public university behemoth, and a shining engine of intellectual innovation, propelling millions of hard-working people into the middle-class. Pawel’s lively history demonstrates that the university has always been a controversial battleground for our own national struggles over equity, free speech, and liberal thought. But in the age of Donald Trump, this book is a must read for anyone concerned about the unprecedented attacks on our nation’s public and private universities.” —Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of AMERICAN SCOUNDREL and AMERICAN PROMETHEUS, the basis for the Academy Award-winning film OPPENHEIMER

“California Dreams is a beautifully written and masterfully executed account of the nation’s most renowned and preeminent public university system. It traces the democratic ethos that animated the University’s founding, analyzes its evolution into an exemplar of excellence and opportunity, documents its vital contributions to the growth and wealth of the Golden State, and describes its deep and sometimes fraught connections to the vast array of students it educates, scholars who research and teach on its campuses, and constituents who hold it accountable. It is a must-read for those who believe in the transformative potential of public education–and for those who do not.” —Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Dean, Harvard Radcliffe Institute; author of CIVIL RIGHTS QUEEN and COURAGE TO DISSENT

“The University of California system is inseparable from California’s rise as a global leader in innovation and economic power. In this sweeping yet intimate narrative, Miriam Pawel tells the UC story through the experiences of individuals whose lives illuminate the system’s extraordinary reach and how it shaped not only the state’s remarkable rise but also America’s debates over equality, excellence, and opportunity. This book cements Pawel’s place alongside Carey McWilliams and Kevin Starr as one of the foremost storytellers of California history.” —Natalia Molina, Distinguished Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern California; President-elect, Organization of American Historians

“How do you write a great book about the history of the University of California? Pair the dreams of people whose lives were utterly changed by this remarkable system of higher education with the dreams of those who took is as their mission to build it and make it work. Most important: have it all come together through the research and writing of one of our most perceptive interpreters of history and hope in the Golden State. A timely, beautiful book.” —William Deverell, Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West