Inventing Paradise: The Power Brokers Who Created the Dream of Los Angeles

Inventing Paradise: The Power Brokers Who Created the Dream of Los Angeles - Hardcover

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Inventing Paradise: The Power Brokers Who Created the Dream of Los Angeles
  • Inventing Paradise: The Power Brokers Who Created the Dream of Los Angeles
Inventing Paradise: The Power Brokers Who Created the Dream of Los Angeles - Hardcover

Inventing Paradise: The Power Brokers Who Created the Dream of Los Angeles - Hardcover

by Paul Haddad
$29.95
$29.95

Book Overview

Inventing Paradise: The Power Brokers Who Created the Dream of Los Angeles traces the improbable rise of Los Angeles through the prism of six visionaries who had outsize influence on the city's growth: Phineas Banning, Harrison Gray Otis, Henry Huntington, Harry Chandler, William Mulholland, and Moses Sherman.

In the late 1870s, Los Angeles was a violent, dusty, 29-square-mile pueblo with a few thousand souls, largely unchanged since its founding in 1781. By 1930, its size had swelled to within 96% of its current 468 square miles, housing a staggering 1.2 million people. In just 50 years, L.A. had joined the ranks of other world-class cities.

In the tradition of Mike Davis's classic work City of Quartz, Paul Haddad (Freewaytopia and 10,000 Steps a Day in L.A.) debunks many myths about the City of Angels with a wildly entertaining narrative that sheds new light on the fascinating birth of modern Los Angeles. Power came from a select few, whose triumphs, scandals, and correspondence are well documented in Inventing Paradise, along with other little-known facts about L.A. history, including:

  • How Los Angeles Times chief Harry Chandler pushed eugenics and endorsed "white spots"
  • Henry Huntington's and Moses Sherman's trolley systems and the extortion-type practices that led to their expansion
  • When Los Angeles was so desperate for water, it hired a miracle worker who promised rain
  • How L.A.'s power elite peddled the lie that the Owens River used to flow into Los Angeles and rightfully belonged to the city
  • When Los Angeles annexed a city in which monkeys cast votes
  • How Venice, California, was not the first Venice, California
  • William Mulholland's game-changing construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which raised the city's population ceiling from 250,000 to 2.5 million

    Haddad also covers the heavy costs that came with creating paradise in such a short period of time, including car dependency, environmental problems, and deep-seated inequities between wealthy white Angelenos and people of color due to racist policies. All have left an imprint on present-day Los Angeles.

    Los Angeles is a city that should not exist--and yet it does. Through Inventing Paradise, Haddad shows readers that Los Angeles is not a paradise found, but a paradise that was willed into existence, owing to the collective vision of these six Gilded Era-born tycoons.


    •
    ISBN9781595801272
    Author Paul Haddad
    PublisherSanta Monica Press
    GenreBiography, News & politics, and History
    FormatHardcover
    PublishedJune 2024
    LanguageENG- English
    Pages404
    Weight1.0 lb
    Target AudienceAdults
    Print SizeStandard Print

    Related Subjects

    Biography & Autobiography History Nonfiction Political Science

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    About Paul Haddad

    Paul Haddad's books include the Los Angeles Times bestseller, 10,000 Steps a Day in L.A.: 57 Walking Adventures, and High Fives, Pennant Drives, and Fernandomania: A Fan's History of the Los Angeles Dodgers' Glory Years, 1977-1981 (named one of the Best Baseball Books of 2012 by the Daily News). As a Hollywood-born native, he has written about Los Angeles for the Los Angeles Times and hosted a column on Huffington Post about L.A.'s forgotten history. He has authored three award-winning novels, including the L.A. Noir Paradise Palms: Red Menace Mob. A graduate of University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, Haddad has been nominated for multiple Emmys as a documentary producer. PaulHaddadBooks.com @la_dorkout Patt Morrison is a journalist, best-selling author, and radio-television personality based in Los Angeles and Southern California. Morrison has a share of two Pulitzer Prizes as a longtime Los Angeles Times writer and columnist. As a public television and radio broadcaster, she has won six Emmys and a dozen Golden Mike awards.

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