Material Dreams (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Kevin Starr
- First Published: 1990
- Type of Work: History
- Time of Work: 1880-1930
- Setting: Southern California
- Principal Characters: William Hammond Hall, William Mulholland, George Chaffey, Lynden Ellsworth Berymer, George Wyman, James Osborne Craig, Jacob Israel Zeitlin, Harry Ward Ritchie, Lawrence Clark Powell, Robinson Jeffers
- Genres: Nonfiction, History
- Subjects: North America or North Americans, United States or Americans, Roads, streets, or highways, California, West, U.S., City life, Filmmaking or filmmakers, Aviation or aviators, Industry, Oil wells or oil-well drilling, Water power
- Locales: California
The pre-Socratic philosopher Thales maintained that all things come from water; in Southern California he would have found support for his theory. The water from which Los Angeles and the Imperial Valley rose did not, however, appear of itself. The rain in California stays mainly in the north: Only about ten percent of the state’s precipitation falls on Los Angeles and the region to its south. Like everything else about the area, therefore, water here was produced by will—Friedrich Nietzsche as well as Thales would have been pleased by the emergence of Los Angeles, Santa Barbara,...
[The entire page is 1852 words long]
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