Miriam Pawel on the history of the University of California

Oakland author talk with Miriam Pawel at Local Economy

There is a good local thread running through this one. Miriam Pawel comes to Local Economy in Oakland on Wednesday, October 7, from 6:00 to 7:30 pm, with her new book California Dreams, a history of the University of California and the state that grew around it.

Pawel is a Pulitzer Prize winner, and she has a gift for taking big public stories and making them feel human. This book looks at UC through the years, from student protests and academic freedom to women’s rights, affirmative action, and the many fights over who public education is meant to serve.

She will be joined by Frances Dinkelspiel, founder of Berkeleyside and author of Tangled Vines and Towers of Gold. That pairing should make for a smart, grounded conversation. Both writers know how to connect history to place, and in Oakland, with Berkeley just up the road, the subject feels especially close.

Local Economy has the kind of room that works well for this sort of evening. It feels community minded and easy to settle into, with space for people who like ideas, books, and the Bay Area’s long memory. No need for a huge stage here. A good conversation can carry the night.

If you went to UC, taught there, protested there, lived near it, or just care about how California became California, this should be worth your time.

Event details
Local Economy, Oakland, California

Pulitzer Prize winner Miriam Pawel is back with a new book, California Dreams, an epic history of one of the world’s elite public universities, its sweeping social impact, and hopeful lessons about endurance in troubled times.

The University has been at the nexus of nearly every public policy debate and social movement since the Civil War, from women’s rights to student protests, from academic freedom to affirmative action, shaping policies that reverberate throughout the United States. Drawing on extensive research in ten archives and dozens of interviews, California Dreams weaves together the linked history of the school and state in all its drama, significance, and humanity; the result is a magisterial narrative of both a remarkable public institution of higher education, and also California itself.
Pawel will be joined in conversation by Berkeleyside founder Frances Dinkelspiel, who is also the author of Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California, a New York Times bestseller, and Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California.