Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

California Rising: The Life and Times of Pat Brown

2006; Oxford University Press; Volume: 92; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/4486037

1945-2314

Roger W. Lotchin,

American Environmental and Regional History

Edmund Gerald “Pat” Brown was one of the most important figures of twentieth-century politics, and Ethan Rarick has done ample justice to this dominating figure. Rarick sees Brown, nicknamed Pat because of a World War I–era rendition of Patrick Henry's speech “Give me liberty or give me death,” not only as a single political figure but also as the epitome of California's new place in American life as the pacesetter. Thus the title, California Rising. According to Rarick, Brown ushered in the first great surge of California political and governmental activism, the hesitation of that surge in the face of the Watts riots and the rebellion on the University of California–Berkeley campus, and finally the backlash, signified by Brown's difficult second term as governor and his defeat by Ronald Reagan. The late Gerald Nash first popularized the idea of the West as the pacesetting region of the nation with California leading the way, and Rarick has fully subscribed to the dictum. In the process of proving his point, Rarick provides a full and careful narrative of Brown's career from his San Francisco beginnings to his first political victory as city attorney of San Francisco to attorney general of California to his unexpected victory in the 1958 gubernatorial race. Brown knocked out former United States Senate majority leader William Know-land and former vice president of the United States Richard M. Nixon in gubernatorial races in 1958 and 1962, but he could not pull off three upsets in a row and lost to Reagan in 1966. But before he did, Brown compiled an impressive record of liberal activism, which included enactment of the California Fair Employment Practices Commission, the great California State Water Project, and the launching of the modern higher education system. Brown did much more, but these were his greatest achievements.