


In California Crucible, Jonathan Bell chronicles this dramatic story of postwar liberalism-from early grassroots organizing and the election of Pat Brown as governor in 1958 to the civil rights campaigns of the 1960s and the campaigns against the New Right in the 1970s. From the late 1940s through the mid-1970s, a generation of liberal activists transformed the political landscape of California, ending Republican dominance of state politics and eventually setting the tone for the Democratic Party nationwide. In the three decades following World War II, the Golden State was not only the fastest-growing state in the Union but also the site of significant political change.
