Inventing Autopia - by Jeremiah B C Axelrod (Paperback)

About the Book

"Flat-out one of the most interesting books I've read in years. To say that a book about California might rank with Kevin Starr's "Americans and the California Dream" or Mike Davis' "City of Quartz" is dangerously high praise, but I think Axelrod's book may someday be in that league."--John Ganim, University of California, Riverside
""Inventing Autopia "thoughtfully weaves together planning and policy history with cultural history to great effect. It is sure to change our understanding of the ways in which Los Angeles not only grew and developed but envisioned itself in the era."--William Deverell, author of "Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past"

Book Synopsis

In 1920, as its population began to explode, Los Angeles was a largely pastoral city of bungalows and palm trees. Thirty years later, choked with smog and traffic, the city had become synonymous with urban sprawl and unplanned growth. Yet Los Angeles was anything but unplanned, as Jeremiah B.C. Axelrod reveals in this compelling, visually oriented history of the metropolis during its formative years. In a deft mix of cultural and intellectual history that brilliantly illuminates the profound relationship between imagination and place, Inventing Autopia shows how the clash of irreconcilable utopian visions and dreams resulted in the invention of an unforeseen new form of urbanism--sprawling, illegible, fractured--that would reshape not only Southern California but much of the nation in the years to come.

From the Back Cover

"Flat-out one of the most interesting books I've read in years. To say that a book about California might rank with Kevin Starr's Americans and the California Dream or Mike Davis' City of Quartz is dangerously high praise, but I think Axelrod's book may someday be in that league."--John Ganim, University of California, Riverside

"Inventing Autopia thoughtfully weaves together planning and policy history with cultural history to great effect. It is sure to change our understanding of the ways in which Los Angeles not only grew and developed but envisioned itself in the era."--William Deverell, author of Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past

Review Quotes

"Provocative and insightful book."-- "Southern California Quarterly" (6/21/2010 12:00:00 AM)

"A solid contribution to scholarship on planning history in the 1920s."--Jennifer Light "Journal Of Planning Education & Research" (6/30/2011 12:00:00 AM)

"Axelrod unearths some fascinating material ... a substantial work."-- "Urban History" (7/24/2012 12:00:00 AM)

"What Inventing Autopia does, it does very well."-- "Technology And Culture" (10/1/2010 12:00:00 AM)

About the Author

Jeremiah B.C. Axelrod is Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Program in Cultural Studies at Occidental College.