Behind the Book - Michael Hiltzik in Conversation with David Zierler

Who speaks in this episode?

• Michael Hiltsick (Guest)
• John Hanks Alexander (Host)
• David Zerler (Host)
• Mark Davis (Guest)
• David Wilkinson (Guest)

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 10:00: Caltech, John Hanks Alexander, David Zerler, Baroque Orchestra
2. 40:00 – 50:00: Caltech, Ernest Lawrence

Notable quotes from "Behind the Book - Michael Hiltzik in Conversation with David Zierler"

• Good evening and save it for the real guys. Thank you very much for being with us. I'm very much looking forward to this conversation tonight. I'm Michael Alexander. My title here is campus arts.

  about John Hanks Alexander · at 0:06

• RA in Beckman auditorium. What we do have coming up in January on the 21st is a Watson lecture where you'll get to learn more about Caltech's role in addressing environmentalled pollution.

  about Watson Lecture · at 2:10

• And they're going to be performing a program dedicated to looking at climate change. One of the most well-known names coming off the Caltech campus is Dr.

  about Dr. Lucy Jones · at 3:42

• When my elementary school teacher said, Pick a book out of this bookshelf. And just by chance, I picked one about a fellow named John Bidwell, who is actually referenced in…

  about Michael Hiltsick · at 4:53

• To put these books down. He's written a number that have dealt with sciences as well. One of them is big science and it looks at the life of Ernest Lawrence of Lawrence Liverour fame and the inventor of the cyclron.

  about Big Science · at 5:41

• Ask you to join me on the aisles so we can pose questions to Michael Hiltik and to David Zerler. David is the campus director of the Caltech History Project and has had an…

  about David Zerler · at 6:53

• [clears throat] to be here at Caltech and I just apppropo of nothing. Simon Ramo was a good friend of mine and in the last years of his life, we used to get together every few weeks for lunch and he would regail me with his.

  about Simon Ramo · at 8:23

• And Caltech and in fact Jay Robert Oppenheimer held a dual appointment at Caltech and at Berkeley and he would spend six months at Caltech six months at Berkeley and at the turn of the year he would drive, you know,.

  about Caltech · at 45:47

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Michael Hiltsick — Person · Main guest (author) · 1 mention · first at 5:04
  He is the featured author being interviewed about California history and his book(s), discussing themes from imperialism and the Gold Rush to technology, politics, and social movements.
• John Hanks Alexander — Person · Host / event emcee · 2 mentions · first at 0:13
  He opens the program, frames Caltech's 'Behind the Book' series, introduces the speakers, and moderates audience Q&A logistics.
• David Zerler — Person · Interviewer / co-host (on stage) · 2 mentions · first at 6:58
  He is introduced as campus director of the Caltech History Project and conducts the on-stage interview with Michael Hiltzik.
• Dr. Lucy Jones — Person · Referenced expert / featured performer-composer (upcoming event) · 1 mention · first at 3:49
  Cited as a prominent Caltech seismologist and public communicator; also mentioned as composing a climate-themed piece for viola da gamba and Baroque orchestra for an Earth Week concert.
• Ernest Lawrence — Person · Referenced scientist (case study in science history) · 3 mentions · first at 5:49
  Cited as the subject of Hiltzik’s prior book 'Big Science' and as a key figure in building California’s academic science ecosystem (cyclotron; UC Berkeley recruitment).
  Sciences as well. One of them is big science and it looks at the life of Ernest Lawrence of Lawrence Liverour fame and the inventor of the cyclron.
• Simon Ramo — Person · Referenced technologist (personal connection) · 1 mention · first at 8:30
  Hiltzik cites Ramo as a friend who shared stories about working for Howard Hughes and playing violin with Jascha Heifetz; also ties to Caltech via 'Ramo Auditorium' mention.
• John Bidwell — Person · Referenced historical figure · 1 mention · first at 4:59
  Used as an entry point into California history; described as leading an early covered-wagon family train into California and connecting with John Sutter; also noted as referenced in Hiltzik’s book.
  Pick a book out of this bookshelf. And just by chance, I picked one about a fellow named John Bidwell, who is actually referenced in Golden State, Michael Hiltsick's book. And he came up, he led the first family covered wagon train coming.
• Chester Carlson — Person · Referenced inventor / Caltech alumnus · 1 mention · first at 6:01
  Mentioned as a Caltech graduate who invented the Xerox process, tied to Hiltzik’s science-history writing and Caltech’s innovation legacy.
  Can't remember the exact title. It's for sale in the back and it is dealing with a Caltech graduate Chester Carlson who invented the Xerox process. And so, he has been studying…
• Mark Davis — Person · Referenced interviewer (upcoming event) · 1 mention · first at 2:40
  Mentioned as the professor who will interview David Wilkinson in a future 'Behind the Book' event, signaling the series’ programming and themes (science and religion).
  That have come out of the hills and all since those fires hit us. We have on January 23rd, Professor Mark Davis will be interviewing the Dr. Reverend David Wilkinson for…
• David Wilkinson — Person · Referenced guest (upcoming event) · 1 mention · first at 2:44
  Named as the subject of a forthcoming 'Behind the Book' interview focused on science and religion (and a topic described as the 'megaverse').
  Since those fires hit us. We have on January 23rd, Professor Mark Davis will be interviewing the Dr. Reverend David Wilkinson for another one of our behind the books and his is…
• Howard Hughes — Person · Referenced industrialist (via Ramo anecdote) · 1 mention · first at 8:43
  Appears as part of Simon Ramo’s personal history, reinforcing the episode’s themes of California aerospace/technology and influential figures.
  Together every few weeks for lunch and he would regail me with his personal history, his life working for Howard Hughes, his life playing violin with Yasha Hifetts and all sorts of interesting.
• Yasha Heifetz — Person · Referenced musician (via Ramo anecdote) · 1 mention
  Mentioned to illustrate Simon Ramo’s unusual breadth (engineering plus elite music circles) and California’s cultural/technological intersections.

Books & papers

• Golden State — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 5:01
  A book mentioned in the context of California history, contributing to the discussion on the state's development.
  Just by chance, I picked one about a fellow named John Bidwell, who is actually referenced in Golden State, Michael Hiltsick's book. And he came up, he led the first family covered wagon train coming into California in the 1830s, hooked up.
• Big Science — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 5:45
  A book mentioned in the context of scientific achievements in California, specifically about Ernest Lawrence.
• Captured Lightning — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 5:55
  A book mentioned in the context of scientific innovations from Caltech graduates.
  Another book is captured lightning. I can't remember the exact title. It's for sale in the back and it is dealing with a Caltech graduate Chester Carlson who invented the Xerox.

Companies & orgs

• Caltech — Company · Headquarters · 11 mentions · first at 1:01
  A key institution in California, mentioned as a hub for scientific research and education.

Products & tech

• Baroque Orchestra — Product · Event experience · 2 mentions · first at 3:40
  Mentioned as part of an upcoming event dedicated to climate change, showcasing the intersection of art and science.
  Will be hosting and working in collaboration with the Coburn School of Music and they have a Baroque Orchestra and they're going to be performing a program dedicated to looking…

Places & events

• Watson Lecture — Event · Event · 1 mention · first at 2:17
  An upcoming lecture mentioned as part of Caltech's events, focusing on environmental pollution.
• Earth Day — Event · Event · 1 mention · first at 3:19
  Mentioned as part of Earth Week events, highlighting environmental awareness.
  We'll have on Wednesday the actual Earth Day. We'll have a film and we're still looking at a large catalog of interesting films. So, we won't know which one exactly, but we'll have plenty of time to give you the word about it.

Sponsors

• Caltech Employees Federal Credit Union — Company · Sponsor · 1 mention · first at 1:31
  Mentioned as a supporter of the programs discussed in the podcast.
  Federal Credit Union, the Friends of Beckman Auditorium, and from a number of other individual donors. And so I want to thank all of them for making these types of programs possible.
• Friends of Beckman Auditorium — Company · Sponsor · 1 mention · first at 1:33
  Mentioned as a supporter of the programs discussed in the podcast.
  Federal Credit Union, the Friends of Beckman Auditorium, and from a number of other individual donors. And so I want to thank all of them for making these types of programs possible.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:06 Good evening and save it for the real guys. Thank you very very much for being with us. Uh I'm very much looking forward to this conversation tonight. Um I'm Michael Alexander. My title here is campus arts and culture leazison and one of the programs I'm very very proud that we're doing and it came about with the pandemic is our behind the book series and it started online and then we've were able to go public again and have done these here live for our audiences. They're all recorded and I encourage you to go and look in the archives because there's some really interesting uh conversations we've had with various scientists and various other uh specialists in a variety of different fields. Often being interviewed by a Caltech scientist, particularly if the book was not was written by somebody who's not from Caltech, then we definitely want a Caltech scientist. If it was written by one of our own, then

1:10 we can even sometimes have uh a outsider come in and talk with them. look at the archives. It's under the uh events.caltech.edu. You look at our behindthebook series and you can find out about all of the other programs that we've done. Um I want to particularly thank our supporters of these programs. We get support from the Caltech Employees Federal Credit Union, the Friends of Beckman Auditorium, and uh from a number of other individual donors. And so I want to thank all of them for making these types of programs possible.

1:45 And I want to encourage you all to sign up and join our mailing list. We will not pester you a lot. We'll send out one mailing a month that lists the upcoming events and you can do that by going to events.caltech.edu and just sign up to be on our events mailing list and you'll get word about the upcoming events that are going to be presented in this auditorium and in uh RA in Beckman auditorium. What we do have coming up in January on the 21st is a Watson lecture where you'll get to learn more about Caltech's role in addressing environmentalled pollution.

2:23 Some of it from the historic perspective and some of it just really relevant to many of us that live not that far from where the fires hit that there's a lot more awareness of some of the pollutants that have come out of the hills and all since those fires hit us. We have on January 23rd, Professor Mark Davis will be interviewing the Dr. Reverend David Wilkinson for another one of our behind the books and his is dealing with the um looking at science and looking at um I wrote it in print that I can't read. It does have to do with the megaverse as part of what he's going to be looking at. It's going to be an interesting kind of look at uh science and religion and uh we should have an interesting time with that. It's a little bit farther down the road, but in April we have two events coming up as part of Earth Week.

3:19 We'll have on Wednesday the actual Earth Day. We'll have a film and we're still looking at a large catalog of interesting films. So, we won't know which one exactly, but we'll have plenty of time to give you the word about it. And on Friday the 24th of April, Caltech will be hosting and working in collaboration with the Coburn School of Music and they have a Baroque Orchestra and they're going to be performing a program dedicated to looking at climate change. One of the most well-known names coming off the Caltech campus is Dr.

3:52 Lucy Jones. If you don't know her as a seismologist, it means you've paid no attention to your earthquakes. She is the go-to communicator from this campus all over the country. There's an earthquake in Arizona, they'll call her. And she is also a viola de Gamba player. And she is very very into uh a number of issues about public policy related to the sciences. And she composed a piece for viola de Gamba for Baroque Orchestra that features a drone note starting with the average earth temperature around the 1880s. And that drone note gets higher and higher as the years go by in this piece. So we encourage you, it's a free concert. It's going to be in Beckman Auditorium. And uh so we encourage you to come back for that in April.

4:43 So I don't know if any of you are the same kind of California history nut that I am. I remember in the fourth grade getting turned on to California history when my elementary school teacher said, "Pick a book out of this bookshelf." And just by chance, I picked one about a fellow named John Bidwell, who is actually referenced in Golden State, Michael Hiltsick's book. And he came up, he led the first family uh covered wagon train coming into California in the 1830s, hooked up with John Sutter, and it made me when I read that book want to learn more and more about California history. This book covers so much about California history that I when I started reading it, I just said, "This guy's I already know because I read his LA Times columns, but his uh writing his books is just absolutely uh spellbinding and captivating. It's hard to put these books down. He's written a number that have that have dealt with

5:45 sciences as well. One of them is big science and it looks at the life of Ernest Lawrence of Lawrence Liverour fame and the inventor of the cyclron. Another book is captured lightning. I can't remember the exact title. It's for sale in the back and it is dealing with a Caltech graduate Chester Carlson who invented the Xerox process. And so, uh, he has been studying science along with economics and any number of other subjects and California history and has really, uh, done a a remarkable job with that. Tonight, we have books for sale and at the end of the evening, Michael's agreed to go back and autograph any of the books that you decide to buy here tonight. Give me a sec.

6:34 I do need my cheat sheet. want to make sure I've got everything that I was supposed to cover. We are going to do a Q&A at the end and I will have this microphone and we'll just the two of our guests have asked that we let you speak up. So when it comes time for the Q&A, you'll raise your hands and I'll bring the microphone over toward you. We'll ask you to join me on the aisles so we can pose questions to Michael Hiltik and to David Zerler. David is the campus director of the Caltech History Project and has had an incredible number of years now interviewing all sorts of people about their relationship to Caltech and to the work they do and is a historian who's worked at for the State Department. He's worked on the sciences in a number of different areas and seemed to me to be the perfect partner to bring onto the stage tonight. So, it is with great pleasure that we now welcome to the stage David Zer in

7:32 conversation with author Michael Hilts. Well, hello everybody. Good evening. Uh, I want to thank Michael Alexander. He is a a legend in the history of Los Angeles arts and culture for over five decades and we're so lucky that Caltech now has him to bring us together. So, it's it's a it's a real honor to be a a colleague of of Michael Alexanders and it's a real honor to be with you, the other Michael here. Well, thanks. And I just want to say that I I'm uh excited and delighted and and humbled [clears throat] to be here um at Caltech and I just apppropo of nothing. Um, Simon Ramo was a good friend of mine and in the last years of his life, we used to get together every few weeks uh for lunch and he would regail me with uh his personal history, his life working for Howard Hughes, uh his life playing um violin with Yasha Hifetts and all sorts of uh interesting.

8:54 He was an extraordinary man. It's great to be here at the Remo Auditorium. So, all right, Michael, let's let's start at the very beginning for you and how you got to this book. Please share with everybody your own journey to California, what you thought about California before you got here, and how all of that after all of these decades informs this stupendous and brave book that you've written. Well, I got here in 1981. I was invited uh by the LA Times to be uh part of a team that uh was charged with starting up the business page for the Orange County edition when we had an Orange County edition and we don't anymore. We rarely have we have much of a business page there or anywhere any anymore. But I'm now the business uh columnist and they've uh uh given me um a wide birth.

9:57 So um uh so I'm still here. Um and when I uh first got the job here um my impression of California was sort of the stereotypical impression. I thought, well, you know, free drugs, free sex, um free thinking. Um, and because I was going to be working in Costa Mesa, I took an apartment in uh Belmont Shore uh in Long Beach. And uh I thought, well, this is great. You know, it's, you know, it's right next to the beach. I can go down the beach anytime I want. And of course, as often happens, my initial impression of California didn't survive the first encounter with reality.

10:41 um when I discovered that Long Beach, which was, you know, the city that I was living in, had the nickname of Iowa by the sea. And that's because, you know, so many immigrants from the Midwest and um and east had had come to Long Beach to live. Um, and then the first time I decided to go down to the beach, I discovered that the maps didn't really communicate uh how far it was, you know, to get from my apartment to the beach. But I was hiking down there with a lawn chair and then discovered that the beach that I was going to was actually part of the harbor and uh the the water was not really swimmable. Let's let's put it that way.

11:28 So uh so reality began to set in but um uh I lived here for a few years. The times sent me back to New York um to be the New York financial correspondent and then sent me uh uh around the world to be a foreign correspondent. And then we came back. I came back with two children in uh about uh 1991 and we raised them there. And just um just I I grew to love California. I grew to love actually the the freethinking um and the economy and uh the great things that were being done done here. And typically when I um uh go looking for a a theme for a book, I look for, you know, I get uh uh interested in a subject and find that there isn't enough out there to fully satisfy my interest.

12:26 And that's why I've started to pitch a book about California history to uh publishers. And the other of course the the other element of this process is you need a publisher to say, "Yeah, we'll buy that." So, um, so

12:40 on the question of there wasn't enough out there, I wonder if you can orient us on the historioggraphy, the literature, the literary tradition of books that take California as a singularity. What were you influenced by and what what did they not do? Well, anybody who's writing uh California history, and there have been a lot obviously um some taking pieces of the the total and some um uh uh trying to address the whole you start with Kevin Star who's who wrote a seven volume history of California and digested it down to one volume in I think uh the late 1990s. Before him there was Carrie McWills who wrote a history of California up to his time.

13:28 His book uh came out in uh 1949. Uh if you go further back uh uh Hubert Bankfra was sort of the dean of California historioggraphers uh but he lived and worked in the 19th century and um so there was a lot uh to draw from but I thought with uh you know Star's book being uh you know already a couple of decades old that it was time to take another run at the fence and another approach a more narrative ative approach uh to uh put California history in in perspective for today's readers.

14:09 Michael, is there a politics in your books that's the same as the politics in your journalism? And for readers of this book, what do you want them to know about your politics?

14:22 Well, um I mean, I'm I'm a li anybody who reads my columns knows I'm a liberal, a progressive. That's not really that's not I I I don't think that's really the approach of my book. In fact, when I pitched it to publishers, I said, "Well, this is going to be a book about what California has given the rest of the nation and given the world." And as the uh the research and the writing evolved, I realized that California's given a lot to the rest of the nation and the rest of the world, but it's given a lot that maybe we we're not so happy that the rest of the nation and the rest of the world knows uh either about California or about California history. So that I think is the thread that that uh comes through.

15:14 What is the earliest in the narrative where the the theme of California giving something to the world? When does that appear?

15:23 Well, it really appears I would say um uh you'd have to say around the time of the gold rush. Mhm.

15:31 But um be before that um the the the idea of California, you know, for centuries before that had this peculiar draw on people. Um and a lot of it was mythology. Um uh but and a lot of it was the search for wealth. um and the search for uh new new lands to conquer. So, you know, we we have the concistadors um who were out of course searching for gold. Uh they didn't find the gold where they thought it was going to be, but they did find pearls and they found some gold. Um and uh uh but they really uh saw California as a um an a land of economic opportunity.

16:26 We'll stay chronological at the very beginning. So what does the story of imperialism in California tell us more broadly or what does it have new to tell us about imperialism in the new world? Well, um I think what it tells us is that um you know when you have a society like pre concisador California, it's vulnerable actually to to an incursion by more militarily, more economically developed um newcomers. And that's the the first conflict really of California history was um was was that

17:10 uniquely vulnerable as opposed to the Native Americans in what would be Virginia for example?

17:16 Well, I can't say much about that, but certainly preconisor California, the tribes, there were uh something in the neighborhood of 150 tribes here in California and they were hunter gatherers. Um they were farmers. They raised uh cattle. They farmed. They traded with each other largely uh Pacifically. Um and they built their societies around the resources that were here. Um land, water where they settled, um uh wildlife livestock. uh when the uh Spanish came in uh they disrupted that uh that tran tranquility and um and basically came into conflict and prevailed because they had better arms, they had uh more immunity to disease. Uh they had uh somewhat more knowledge about agriculture.

18:23 So um that's sort of the first phase in the grand scheme of imperial dominance conquest of of North America, the English, the French, the Spanish, the Russians, what does the story of California as a as a unique entity? What does it tell us about that big competition, that great imperial narrative? Well, I think what it tells us is that all of those uh countries that you mentioned, Britain, France, Russia Spain um uh saw California as such a land of opportunity that they fought over it with each other. And uh it was uh you know for one reason or another uh uh I I think all these countries except for uh Russia uh uh fell away and Spain was the u uh the lasting force.

19:21 How did California change that ultimate struggle between Spain and the United States? Well it California was was Spanish uh basically for uh 400 years. Um uh the United States didn't really uh have much interest in California until much later because it was so far away. I mean, the United States, you know, the western frontier of the US was, let's say, the Mississippi River. Um, and it was only once settlers, American settlers, began to to move beyond the Mississippi and come all the way uh west that you began to see real conflict between the Americans and the Spaniards.

20:11 And when does it come to a head? When is it obvious that the Americans are going to win out?

20:16 Well, uh, around the time of the Mexican War. Um uh basically what was happening is that um settlers were were coming west. Uh they were setting up uh uh land estates, farms. uh they were uh uh starting to ranch and um and the the the American settlers uh certainly the first American settlers had this idea that they were going to be the heirs to this region. Um, and they uh they saw that the Spanish when they were in dominion over California didn't really spend that much time or effort defending it because they didn't realize there was anything to defend it from.

21:11 But they began to to be concerned when they saw, you know, thousands of American settlers from the Midwest and the East come over and sort of set their uh their terms as to what they wanted to see.

21:24 Is there an anti-American sentiment? Are there calls for deportation of Americans?

21:30 Well, there was a lot of conflict. In fact, uh there were co there were calls for uh yeah, for evicting the Americans. uh you know they didn't call it deportation but it might as well have been um and um there were uh times at which um uh Mexican that is to say Spanish Mexican alcales and um um and and other leaders would put out essentially uh death threats against u American settlers. And of course the American settlers would see this. I you know they would tend to uh uh overemphasize how serious these threats were, but it gave them the opportunity to call in call upon the the US Army to say look you have to you know you have to get rid of them. Uh and that's eventually what happened. Um we had the era of John Charles Fremont. Um uh we had uh my favorite California historical episode, the bare flag rebellion. Do we do we you know to make to make a long story short there was a clutch of American settlers around New

22:50 Helvishia which was a settlement that had been created by John Sutter. Um who is Swiss and um now is basically Sacramento. Um

23:03 and this is Sutter Wines the same Sutter. I don't know if it's set sed wines may just have used the name but setter's mill um you know um

23:14 uh setter really wanted a to basically create a a granary and a um uh an agricultural uh zone. Um anyway, there was this clutch of of settlers and they decided that what they, you know, to get the American government to recognize what was going on out here in the West, they decided that they were going to come out west and they were going to declare the Republic of California. And they were going to do it by uh invading um the settlement the the um uh the community of Soma where they said well you know there's a you know there's a general Isimo there and we'll you know we'll take you know he's not going to put up much resistance we'll go over there if he puts up a fight we'll we'll win if he doesn't put up a fight so much the better. And it turned out that uh Soma was such a sleepy town that the Alcal had sent the garrison home two years earlier.

24:21 So the bare flag rebels, they show up um and you know there's there's you know nothing to fight them. The Alcali lived on the square in his home uh with his wife, he had a daughter. there were some friends around and all he wakes up one day and there are these ruffians gathered outside his house and he who are you these guys you know so he comes out um and he meets and greets them and they say well you know we're the California Republic and uh you're you're under arrest so he says all right well why don't you come inside and we'll parlay the terms of of my arrest. So, a bunch of them go in, they follow the um uh the al-Qaeda in and then they don't come out and the the ruffians who are still on the outside said, "Well, what's going on in there?" And they send another platoon in to find out. And then they don't come out.

25:26 Finally, the leader of this gang, a man named Benjamin ID, says, "Well, I'm going to go in and get to get to the bottom of this." And what he discovers is that the alcal, you know, once he had all these guys in his house, he broke open his liquor cabinet and all of these invaders were, you know, they were, you know, they had their foreheads on the table and there was one guy who was trying to write a, you know, a manifesto of arrest and they finally arrested him and they took him and nine others back to Sutters Fort and their idea was to turn them over to Fremont.

26:02 who was a US Army uh officer who was really there he said to explore and he was an explorer and you know the bare flag rebels show up with these guys and say hey you know they're all yours and Shrimos really wanted no part of this at that point so he turned them over to Sutter and you know and they finally went back to Sonoma

26:29 the narrative of the gold rush the effects are much bigger than the amount of gold actually recovered. How do you see that story in parallel and in crossing with the brewing civil war that's a that's going to start a decade plus later?

26:45 Well, uh I think what I wrote in my book was that you can divide California history at least in in the broadstrokes of that era into pre- gold rush and post gold rush. Um when gold was discovered by James Marshall at at uh Sutter's Mill um for the first year or so, nobody outside California really knew much about it. Um but everybody in San Francisco had heard about it and San Francisco emptied out uh completely. Um you you couldn't uh you couldn't buy a pick or shovel. You couldn't buy a saddle. Everybody had gone to the the gold diggings.

27:31 Um and then the um the military the American military mayor of California and his agitant William Tecumpsa Sherman decided to ride in to the gold diggings and to see what was going on. And they they saw thousands of men um digging uh prospecting beginning the industrialization of uh gold prospecting. And they wrote a report. They they got a few nuggets of gold. They put it in a box. They wrote a report. They sent a lieutenant to uh to Washington to report on this. And then Pulk, President James K. Pulk uh made the announcement and said uh you know our our people in California have discovered gold and that was now 1849 and the world turned upside down basically. But as you said, the the the period in which uh individual prospectors made their tried to make their fortunes was very brief because it became clear very quickly that you needed a team at least to extract gold and and eventually you needed an

28:48 industrial setup to uh to uh to extract gold and and that period really lasted only about 10 years or so. How did the creation of California affect the Civil War? And then how did the outcome of the Civil War with of course the North Victorious influence what happened in California after? Well, um, up to the time of the Civil War, California was so distant from the United States really that in Washington, there was a concern that, um, you know, once war erupted, there was a serious chance that California would affiliate with the Confederacy.

29:30 So, was there a history of slaveolding here, of African-American slaveolding? Uh, well, uh, no. That that's a um sort of that's an interesting story. In in 1848 um the military governor of California recognized that California was not really going to be suited to military governance for a long time. So he went to the leaders of California and he said,"I want you basically to um hold a constitutional convention and write a state constitution and then in that state constitution you need to uh basically um create a state legislature." Of course, California was not a state, you know, state constitution without a state, state legislature without a state. But um uh that was that was uh and in the in the initial um constitution slavery was forbidden.

30:35 And we like to think that there was some you know moral imperative behind that but in fact as as is the case with so many things it was economic. Um the uh the gold industry basically was uh dominant in that uh in that in that constitutional convention. And they they had this impression that black uh workers, black slaves uh uh if you have it were prednaturally talented at extracting gold and they didn't want that competition. So they basically outlawed outlawed slavery in in the state, but they did not but they also outlawed the importation of free blacks into California in the same document. So you can see what what really the e economic impetus was for uh for for borrowing slavery. But but you know the the the writers of the constitution and the the the first legislature also understood that slavery had become such uh a a a perilous issue that if California had given any indication that it was going to be a a

31:55 slave state that might uh affect its opportunity for statehood. So so they sort of downplayed it. What did the industrial revolution look like in California? If we could think of the the steel mills of the Midwest, what was the industrial revolution like here?

32:13 Well, the the the industrialization of California really was an artifact of population growth. Um in uh in San Francisco, which really was the dominant uh city of California till about 1920, um there was so much demand for manufactured goods that uh San Francisco went from having two forges to dozens of forges. Um and then once you had uh this community growing and growing, then you had the growth of of industries that fed on uh population growth and and economic growth. Everything from um uh you know, cigar rolling to um uh to hard manufacturing. When did right-wing politics or even reactionary politics really take root in California to the point that to the extent that it had national implications?

33:13 Well, as California grew um its politics began to exercise greater weight on national politics just because it it was it was becoming um so big. Um but um uh reactionary impulses uh surfaced uh fairly uh uh quickly uh after the gold rush. Um and a lot of that was also uh based on economics. uh the uh the railroad builders had imported Chinese labor and then the railroad got built and the Chinese laborers stayed and they went into farming and so they were now competing with settled farmers with white farmers and they went into um other industries that had been white industries. So you you saw um the rise of a movement that was called carnism. It was after Dennis Carney who was a rabble rousing uh Irish um uh political agitator and his watchword was the Chinese must go.

34:30 So uh you had uh you know you you had raids on Chinese uh families, raids on Chinese communities. Um it was uh very very vicious and um and so that so that was that you know when when that sort of ebbed uh you know it was it was that conflict that brought about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which was a national obviously a national uh national legislation and it was basically anti anti-Chinese sentiment here in California. There were not a lot of Chinese residents in the rest of the country. They were they were all here. They you know they were the focus of this conflict. But uh they Californians exercised enough um uh heft to to get um a uh you know the Chinese Exclusion Act legislated.

35:30 When does California contribute meaningfully to the national defense? When are there the first serious military bases?

35:39 Yeah, I don't think you really see that until Well, I you don't see that really until World War I. And that's um sort of an outgrowth of the new industrialization of the California economy that had started back in 1910 or so.

35:56 And what does that mean, new industrialization? Well, um the um Californians basically were uh you know as as they moved to Cal as people moved to California, people moved to California really it was so far from the rest of the country and so distant that California got the reputation of being a place where you could start your life over. uh uh the jumping off place as Edmund Wilson uh called it. Um so um you had a lot of civic boosters who wanted more people to come because uh you know growth was the watch word of the age. um the um uh so they were so uh they were always looking around for new industries to attract. And in 1910, a um basically an empressio came to William Randph Hurst and uh Harrison um uh uh uh Otis, who was then the owner of the Los Angeles Times and said, you know, I have a great idea. There was just a great aviation show in Reams, France, and the organizers of that are

37:19 looking for a place to have the next show. This is a perfect place. And you know, and Otis and and her said, "Well, yeah, we'll buy in." Absolutely. You know, this is, you know, money free for the picking. And they had a big the Los Angeles Air Show uh brought uh famous aviators from all over the world. Glenn Curtis uh you know from from the east um a man named Poland from from France and it went on uh for about a week. It brought huge crowds. It brought huge money. It brought a huge publicity from the Hurst papers and the times uh you know pardonably proud of what they had um accomplished and the aviators and the aviator uh the aviation industry that came out here realized that this was going to be a good place to sort of spread out. uh there was land uh there was an increasingly talented labor pool and uh there was a you know an increasing interest in technology. So that was really the first new industry

38:30 as we say was aviation. It took a few years for it to grow but within eight or 10 years it was an aviation

38:36 and the emphasis was civilian at first or was it military and civilian in parallel? Well, it depended for, you know, for some uh companies they depended on military contracts. Um uh there was a dependence on the mail. Um that was a big draw. Um the question of um uh passenger aviation grew slowly because nobody was really sure how much people were would pay, how many passengers you could fit in a plane. And there was a certain amount of competition to design and build planes that could be be passenger planes only rather than just carrying cargo. You could actually make a profit just by carrying people. Was it predestined, do you think, that Los Angeles would become a hub of aviation with World War II? Was where was it in competition with?

39:32 Well, it was in competition with uh with New York, with uh the Midwest. I wouldn't say it was predestined. It was basically a certain amount of Balihoo and boosterism that made California. It was said for a time there there was a time in which there wasn't a a a state fair anywhere in the country where there wasn't a Los Angeles pavilion. Um and you know the Los Angeles was you know they would you know they would come with oranges and they would come with all sorts of you know they would talk about the climate they would talk about the lack of disease which was a big draw especially here in uh in California. But there was a time in which Los Angeles was dubbed the best advertised city in America.

40:22 So um but uh yeah where does Hollywood where does Hollywood fit in? Well, Hollywood fits in. Hollywood is a really um fascinating part of the story. Hollywood was um an industry that was very technology focused. um Hollywood studios had great interest in perfecting lenses and cameras and film chemistry and all that because because they needed constant improvement in the product to keep people in the seats. Now at the same time the Hollywood moguls um uh you know at the time they were all foreigners essentially and they felt that they had been excluded from the high society of of the east and they came out here because they they realized that they could create their own society and that's exactly what they did. So um that's what I think put Hollywood here.

41:24 And then of course you know when you talk about Hollywood technology you talk about sound um there's this impression that uh talks started in January 1927 with the jazz singer. The fact of the matter is that the Hollywood studios have been looking for ways to synchronize sound and image for years before that. In fact, RCA and AT&T had come to the studios and said, you know, if if you want to work with us, we will help you develop this technology. Warner and AT&T uh created a a company called Vitafone well before 1927. They could see how popular it was and um and it went on from there. And and the the interesting thing just as an aside, if you watch The Jazz Singer Today, you notice that most of the movie is is silent. You know, they have, you know, title cards, you know, silent dialogue.

42:29 Um, and not only that, but the storyline is very Jewish, you know, because it's about a a singer who grow who grows up in a caner's household. And the caner is his great desire is for his son to sing the kadre at Yum Kapoor. And the son says well you know I want to be a nightclub singer and you know and you know the climax of the day. He does both. He sings a colre and he also you know uh sings at a nightclub. But what really drove the popularity of the jazz singer was Al Jolson. Jolson was the star. Most of the movie was silent, but there were five or seven interpolated songs. And when you watch it, you can just see Jolson's charisma just burst from the screen. He was just incredibly popular. He made that movie and and but by by then uh movie theaters all over the country were already equipping themselves to uh uh for sound. Michael, all of the technological innovations that have their origin story in California, from

43:44 planes to computers and everything in between, why California? Why has it been such a a central point of growth, not just for America, but the world? Well, I think uh you know, there there gets to be a point where there's a critical mass of technological thinking here in California. And I think um Michael mentioned Ernest Lawrence in the cyclletron. What was going on was that um the the academic center of the United [clears throat] States was was back east and if you wanted to make a career um in in academic science, you had to be there. So uh in California, they looked at this and they and they said, "Well, we see an opportunity here." and the University of California sent a delegation to Yale where Ernest Lawrence was, you know, a lecturer or or maybe a low-level professor. And they said to him, "Look, you can sit here and you can live the life. You you can you can create the career of a of an

44:57 academic scientist, which means that you're going to sit around and wait for the people above you to die off and then you'll move up the ladder and eventually, you know, in 20 years you'll be a full professor. If you come out with us, we're going to give you your own lab. we can you're going to be a full professor in maybe two years and you're going to have you know you you can write your own ticket. So Lawrence said, "Well, yeah, okay." He comes out. Uh Lawrence is at that point very well-known scientist. he gets followed by others and um and that's the beginning basically of academic science at UC and in California and then um so you then you had Berkeley and Stanford um

45:47 and Caltech and Caltech and in fact uh Jay Robert Oppenheimer held a dual appointment at Caltech and at Berkeley and he would spend six months at Caltech six months at Berkeley and at the turn of the year he would drive, you know, he'd drive from here up to Berkeley and he'd be followed by a line of cars of his students who would follow him and then six months later they would they would all drive back. You know, Oppenheimer was really the center of a cult. I mean, his students uh they smoked his brands of cigarettes. they adopted his his uh you know his um speech pattern which was sort of a mumbling pattern uh which I don't know if you get the full sense of it in uh in the movie but but there was one point at which um very well-known German physicist came came out to I don't know if it was Berkeley or or Caltech and sat in on one of Oppenheimer's classes and he knew Oppenheimer and he was listening

46:52 and Oppenheimer was sort of mumbling and he finally leaned forward and said, "Puppy, is this supposed to be a secret?" So, but you know, um but but that's you know, but but it's these relationships that made you see so important.

47:09 Mike, I'll bring this right up to the present. I asked about right-wing politics. Where where where is the origin story for left-wing politics and how do you understand progressivism with the California flavor right up to the present day?

47:23 Well, California was a a very good seedbed both for [clears throat] conservative and progressive uh politics. I mean, we were California was far enough away from sort of this settled political centers for all of these movements to really grow. And as I uh I mentioned in the book, uh California's politics had this sort of boom and bust uh cycle just as California's economy has had a boom and bust cycle. But uh you know just after World War II um the Democrats had been basically in charge of California for for far too long. The Republicans saw an opportunity and what they needed was a candidate and they looked around and said, "Well, who's out there, you know, who can who we can put up, you know, to take advantage of uh of this need for for a new voice?" And at f, you know, at some point they talked about trying to entice George Patton to be a candidate for a Congress congressional seat. As it happened,

48:36 Patton wasn't interested and and was killed in an accident, you know, within a year or two. But then they found this guy, Richard Nixon. Nixon grew up in Whittier, had a military career. He was, I think he was in the judge advocate general's office. He was um he he had what seemed to to them to have a winning personality and um and was was was very willing to do what the Republican uh leaders wanted and one of them walked out of the first meeting with uh Nixon and said, you know, this is a salailable commodity. So then Nixon uh runs runs for for Congress and then subsequently for uh for Senate. And one of the points I made is that he was not an outlier in California politics. He basically based his campaigns on the California Zeitgeist. And when he ran for Congress, the zeitgeist was uh red baiting, you know anti-communism.

49:44 He fell right into that. Um, and then when Reagan came around, um, uh, there was a lot of discontent. Uh, you know, Pat Brown looked like he was about to run out his string. He had been governor for, uh, at le terms and was, I think, talking about running for for a third. Um, and when and and and the Republican party nationally was still um, suffering from the Goldwater loss. So, the Republicans needed a new figure. And there were a lot of rich Republicans here in California who knew Ronald Reagan. He was uh uh you know, he was a conservative. He looked like the ne you know, could be the next coming Republican.

50:35 And uh he and his people went around the state. And what they kept hearing was somebody in the audience saying, "What are you going to do about the mess in Berkeley?" And Reagan at first he said, you know, what's going on in Berkeley? I don't know. You know, but his aid said, you know, that's something we can sell. And Reagan wrote that he was also not an outlier. He was he, you know, he saw and his people saw the the political zeitgeist. So, California was a Republican state in both of those periods.

51:15 Well, I asked about progressive politics and we talked about Nixon and Reagan. So, on that note, why don't we open it up to the audience because just scratched the surface here. Michael, please.

51:24 Thank you. Uh, please raise your hand and come to the aisle if you've got a Don't even have to come to the aisle in this case.

51:31 Please. Hi. Hi. Um, I'm a Catholic graduate. I took two courses here back when I was undergraduate about California history. They were great. Broad Paul was a professor, great guy. But I've been interested in Calvin history for years. I read your book. I loved it. There was a lot of stuff I learned. Um, the most fascinating chapter was about the Japanese internment and about the style of of government by executive order. I didn't know there was executive order that set that up without the the approval or involvement of the Justice Department.

52:01 It was a fascinating story of of and even Earl Warren's involvement was amazing. I'd love you to compare that process that was clearly motivated by you know fear and racism to what's going on now in the government and how executive orders have become the style of our present president. But I love the the chapter was great.

52:19 Well thank in fact that's the first chapter that I wrote. Um and the first surprise that I encountered in doing my research was the role of Ro Warren. Uh Warren was the attorney general. Um pop very popular Republican attorney general obviously future governor and and his his agitation in favor of the incarceration is really striking. And I have and and I wrote about um a memorandum that he wrote for uh delegation uh from Congress that was uh uh beginning to ponder what do we do uh about uh the Japanese, you know, there was a panic, you know, the J Japanese or Japanese submarines off the coast and all this. and um he wrote this manifesto that's really one of the most um unapologetically racist documents you can imagine. I mean um now Warren uh one of his power blocks was uh farmers.

53:34 So uh but by that time Japanese had moved into farming. there's a lot of uh agitation about you know why do we let them own land you know why are they here why are they there um but uh you know he he basically um uh described the Japanese as a fifth column here in America and the the congressman or you know his his critics would say well you know but there haven't been any there haven't been any attacks. Has there been any evidence of Japanese fermented violence? And and Warren said, "Yeah, they're keeping their powder dry." You know, that's a sign that they're they're up to no good. Um and people would say, "Well, you know, half 120,000 Japanese residents in California, half of whom are citizens."

54:32 And Warren would say, "Yeah, it's the Japanese citizens that we're worry really worried about because their families send them back to Japan to get inculcated with Japanese ideology and then they come back here and and they're they're up to no good." So that went on. Warren never ever apologized during his life for his role in this which was just incredibly important because the um the the people who wanted to incarcerate the Japanese, you know, would say, "Well, we have the best and the brightest here in California who who who are with us on this." And they met Warren. So, um, there was one episode in which Warren was giving a speech at Bolt Hall, which is the law school where he had graduated from, and there were, you know, a few Japanese American citizen students who confronted him and said, you know, don't you want to apologize? And he said, I I never look back at that. Now in in his

55:38 memoirs he expressed regret for his role but um there's some evidence that he didn't write that section of his memoir. They were publishedly by his son actually.

55:59 I just wanted to find out if there's an audio version of the book coming out. There's a

56:11 lady over here. Show me. Oh, there we go. I'm gonna come in front. Um, to the outside world when they hear California, they think of earthquakes. And I was just wondering if you could comment on the role of earthquakes in Californian history. and maybe also wildfires. No.

56:38 Well, you know, there's one earthquake to speak of, of course, and that's the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. And and what I wrote about it is that, you know, it was another formative moment in California history. And um what concerned, you know, it it taught people uh how to come together in a crisis like this and and also how to get things wrong in a crisis. Um the reason that that the San Franciscans, you know, talk about the fire rather than the earthquake, a couple of reasons, but one is that the concern of the rebuilders of San Francisco was that they needed capital from the east and earthquakes were not really, you know, a big thing in the east. I mean, you know, there'd been some, but so east eastern uh capitalists, you know, saw earthquakes as something that, you know, really was scary and dangerous, but fires were were common. And you had the Chicago fire, you had the Baltimore

57:50 fire. Um, so that was understandable. And when um when the San Francisco said, "Well, we're rebuilding from a fire that you know that's oh yeah okay well we can we can pay for that now the other thing is that of course most of the destruction in San Francisco was a result of the fires not of the moment of earthquake

58:19 you mentioned about the movie industry coming out from New Jersey to California wasn't one of the major reasons is so they didn't have to pay the patents on the film stock itself.

58:30 They didn't have to pay the patents on the stock. The actual patents were owned by Edison, I believe.

58:38 Well, because I have family stories about the distribution became very questionable because the Pinkertons were after them.

58:45 So, in the backwoods of Minnesota, my grandfather would drive from town to town. There is something to be said for that that you know there there were patent battles that Edison was involved in and the studios thought that the further they away they were from Edison the better chance they had at winning the patent patent battles.

59:05 Just the other question just growing up in Pasadena the rich history of millionaires coming from the east to spend the winter here. Don't you think that's a big cause or reason why people said, "Hey, I'm going to start a factory here or they actually got to see the community. Wasn't that sort of a driving force?" Wriggley bringing his stuff out here from Chicago.

59:26 Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. I mean, the idea that California, especially Southern California, was a healthful place. Um, you know, climate, you know, was unmatchable.

59:38 They weren't poor people. They were rich people. Yeah. Yeah, they were they were rich and but

59:44 here yeah but as the transcontinental railroad the railroads got built it became a lot cheaper to come out here uh when the Santa Fe uh got built and started competing with the union and central Pacific.

1:00:01 Yeah. Okay. Um, hi. Um, I have two questions. One is could you talk about the history of oil in California? And number two, um, it's my understanding that it wasn't until the 1920s that it wasn't a crime to kill a Native American in California. So, how did that change come about?

1:00:30 Uh, well, I'll take your second question first. Um the what the law said was that um uh only whites could testify in court um against whites. Um blacks, Indians, Chinese could not testify. So there could be open season on them and uh white marauders did not really have to worry about uh being brought to to book. Um uh now that changed I I think by the turn of the century those laws had been repealed. Um, as for oil, um, it for the longest time it wasn't clear that California oil was going to have find a market. Um, the first chemists who examined what was bubbling up from the ground. You know, there were tarpets all over uh, thought, well, you know, first of all, it's not going to be good for lighting because it's going to foul uh, lamps. it's too thick for any of the the other uses u that we have uh for oil. But it was soon discovered that California oil was really good as uh fuel as um uh shipping fuel and and

1:02:01 ultimately uh aviation fuel and that's what really drove the growth of the California oil industry. Uh first of all, thanks a ton for the book as a novel, I guess. Uh so someone just arrived to California. I'm uh very excited to learn more about the guess the history of the state. There's there's um one thing that strikes me, which is we learn so much and so much has written about the um you know the the pilgrims, the founding fathers on the east, much less it seems about the voyages of discovery out west. And I'm curious what historical records we we have of, you know, Drake, Cababrio, Porto's journeys, and even what society looked like in the first few decades, I guess, of settlement here. And then another unrelated question, but um you know, California has been at the center of so many movements that have shaped the world. Um and I'm curious about the role of of I guess California and the in shaping the environmental

1:02:57 movement, right? The first the national parks, yuseite, the Sierra Club. Uh it seems that it's a force that really had um I don't know maybe not its birth but at least inspiration here and I'm curious how that that has emerged.

1:03:11 I'm not I'm not sure what you're asking. I mean John Mureer obviously came to California. He um uh found US. I mean he didn't discover it but you know he uh he saw it. He was entranced. he did uh co-ound the Sierra Club. Um and um as for the explorations, I I should just mentioned that nobody is entirely 100% sure that Drake ever landed in California. I mean, there's a Drake Bay. Um and you know they you know supposedly he had left a bronze placard and you know a bronze placard you know turned up at at some point I think at u at at Berkeley um or somewhere you see and it was soon shown to be a hoax. Um and Drake as it as it happens was a well-known fabulist. He was he was a liar. A lot of what he claimed about his voyages has turned out to be untrue. So it's, as I said, the evidence that he actually set foot on uh dry land in California is we're not sure.

1:04:29 I have a question. California throughout my lifetime has been host to a whole slew of different religious figures who have created cult-like followings around them. Amy Simple McFersonson being one, Elron Huard being another. Can you talk a little bit about the uh different religious figures that have played a big role in California over the last many decades?

1:04:53 Well, yeah, California was a great seedbed of these sort of um yeah, religious movements and you mentioned Amy Simple McFersonen who I I think made the most of made the most of it. Um Carrie Mc Williams uh wrote about a lot of there were a lot of these sort of fringe groups and the point that he made was that uh there was there was so much lack of settlement settled you know settled enterprise here in California that it that it was available uh you know people who had come to find their fame and fortune who you know got to the end of the road hadn't found either one. Uh they were sort of vulnerable to being uh caught up in these movements. Now Amy simple McFersonen was just you know a uniquely talented uh figure. Um she was the one who she you know she married religiosity to technology. Uh you know created a radio station that that made her famous all over the country. I think you could say

1:06:07 all over over the world. The Angelus Temple, 5,000 seats, still stands um on the fringes of downtown. The radio station still broadcasts. Um and she was just a spectacular showwoman. Um, and of course she was also given to uh she was brought down by scandal of her own making as as you you may know. But she had a she had a great run, made a lot of money. Her mother um basically ran the business and so um but it but it was religious. HL Min came out here and recognized uh Amy's charisma. He he wasn't caught up in it, but his take was that uh the existing religious um establishment was was full of such boobs that somebody like Amy, you know, could just run over them and and that's that's why she was able to prevail.

1:07:11 You mentioned the story about uh Fremont and just recently I kind of came across other stories of Fremont because I always thought of him kind of like the way you tell it about this this kind of interesting figure that took California without a shot and but he also did some Native American massacres, didn't he? With him and his men. Can you tell a little bit about that? Yeah, Fremont um you know Fremont was very popular among his exploration uh teams. He was not so popular uh among people who had to deal with him uh from the outside. But um uh the point came when uh you know am amid among the conflicts between settlers and Indians um uh people would appeal to him. Kit Carson who was a scout came to him and said you know I want to join in these punitive expeditions.

1:08:14 At first, Fremont uh refused to let him, but then said, "Yeah, go ahead." And um and it but it was Fremont's men, Fremont soldiers who participated in some of the most vicious massacres. They were not alone. Um the army's punitive um behavior was just uh unbelievably bloody and violent and in in many ways uh more vicious than uh we saw in the march west from uh from the east. We're over to your right.

1:08:50 Thank you. Given California's size, was there ever a serious effort early on to create more than one state?

1:09:01 Yeah, you know, at the be at the beginning that was very much um part of the debate. Uh the debate was how big should California be? And um because California was basically drawn out of what America annexed uh as spoils from the the the Mexican war and uh there was some sentiment in and saying let's just make you know the whole annexed territory one state but but I the the um the constitutional uh convention said yeah you know that's going to be too big for the country to swallow. So they fashioned um borders that are that that are our borders today. Now periodically the idea of splitting California in two. Also the idea of California seceding from the nation uh crops up you know very recently.

1:10:00 But the fact is that the California economy today is so geographically uh integrated within itself that uh there would be a real economic imbalance if it were split up. And as far as seceding, people ask me about that. I say look, you know, that idea was pretty much the idea of a state seceding was pretty much settled in 1865. And California is is so integrated with the rest of the United States and through that with the rest of the world economy that it it wouldn't make sense for it to go up on its own.

1:10:41 I'm not Are there any more? Oh, you have a question? Yeah. Can we talk politics? Anyway, I'm a progressive liberal like you. I'm in an industry where all my colleagues are MAGA guys, all right? And they're always giving me a hard time about being in California. And I say, you know, it's the greatest state and I just need help as far as having an argument why it is the greatest state because they're all like, well, Reagan was in charge and Duke Nation was in charge and Rean was in charge and those were the good days. And I'm thinking, they weren't that good. Well,

1:11:22 what's the argument? You can tell them first of all that uh Reagan would not survive in today's Republican party.

1:11:31 Um but you know, you you have to say, well, you [snorts] know, what what is it that you want? You know, what do you want out of uh American governance? Do you want a country that disdains the other, that disdains that if you're not white, you are somehow um second class and second uh rate? Or do you want a country that sees value in people from all ethnic groups, all uh gender uh groups, and that, you know, sees everybody as somebody with an ability to contribute to the greater good. And I think that's what we have here. and and um I think you know I I don't know if we're going to have a Californian in the White House uh you know some years from now but I but I think you know I I have to say you know there was some doubt about uh Nuome at the beginning of the Trump of this Trump term about whether he was up to um competing.

1:12:41 Um, but I think you have to say that he's risen to the occasion and he's done it by voicing California values as they're seen today, which are progressive values and uh he's going to try to make them into uh an electoral weapon. He's not going to be alone. there are going to be any number of uh other politicians who are going to they're going to look at what he's done and say you know what can I take from his strategy that will work for me what do I see in his strategy that's not you know that that's going to be a flaw um but there's I think there's going to be a real competition for the uh for the nomination and we'll know more you know a year from now with the midterms and we'll have time for one more question

1:13:30 yeah I have two separate questions if that's okay. Um my first question is uh in your research did you draw upon a moment um that that we can take parallels from today's present situation and the second is can you go into the little bit of the u divide in California's history between coastal California and inland California um throughout the throughout our history. Well, I'll focus on, you know, your your second question, which is that um there's a there's an obvious economic divide uh between coastal California and the what down here we call it the Inland Empire. I don't know what they call it in Northern California, but the money is here on the coast.

1:14:17 um the population is here on the coast and liberal politics are here on the coast. And you can look at Silicon Valley and say, "Well, those guys, you know, they're not liberals." And what I tell people is um most of the people in Silicon Valley are Democrats. Uh Silicon Valley is represented by Democrats from top to bottom. the conservative, the MAGA billionaires. You see, I I think it's a bit of a category error to think of them as Silicon Valley bros. I think of them as millionaires and billionaires. And throughout history, they have always acted this way. They have tried to assert that they're doing more for everybody else, so they should get a a pass on certain things. And um but um you know um as as I said the political power uh in Silicon Valley is is still democratic.

1:15:29 Well, I want to thank both of you. I want to thank all of you for joining us and I want to thank those who asked questions tonight.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Behind the Book - Michael Hiltzik in Conversation with David Zierler"?

Michael Hiltsick (Guest), John Hanks Alexander (Host), David Zerler (Host), Mark Davis (Guest), David Wilkinson (Guest).

What is discussed in "Behind the Book - Michael Hiltzik in Conversation with David Zierler"?

In order: 0:00 Caltech, John Hanks Alexander, David Zerler, Baroque Orchestra; 40:00 Caltech, Ernest Lawrence.

What is mentioned in this caltech episode?

21 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Michael Hiltsick, John Hanks Alexander, Caltech, David Zerler, Golden State, Watson Lecture. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Behind the Book - Michael Hiltzik in Conversation with David Zierler"?

The episode runs 1 h 16 min; the transcript is about 10,897 words in 107 timestamped sections.

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