Peter Schrag takes on the big issues—immigration, globalization, and the impact of California's politics on its quality of life—in this dynamic account of the Golden State's struggle to recapture the American dream. In the past half-century, California has been both model and anti-model for the nation and often the world, first for its high level of government and public services—schools, universities, highways—and latterly for its dysfunctional government, deteriorating services, and sometimes regressive public policies. California explains how many current "solutions" exacerbate the very problems they're supposed to solve and analyzes a variety of possible state and federal policy alternatives to restore government accountability and a vital democracy to the nation's most populous state and the world's fifth-largest economy.

Peter Schrag is a contributing editor and columnist at the Sacramento Bee. He is the author of many books, including Paradise Lost (UC Press) and Final Test.

"Masterful. . . Indispensable reading for anyone seeking to understand the complexity of the state's continuing social experiment."—San Francisco Chronicle

"The right observer to be asking these questions. . . . Schrag is faithful to his evidence, wherever it takes him."—Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Lucid, evenhanded, and thoughtful, Schrag offers one of the best analyses yet of the California train wreck and its troubling implications for America's future."—Publishers Weekly

"I recommend California for anybody interested in understanding the great challenges facing our state."—Senator Dianne Feinstein