California Dreams

[A] superb history...What makes this book exceptional is the way Pawel captures human dimensions that afford a fuller panorama of the many ways the state and the UC are linked... California Dreams tells a story of grand ambition and foresight unfolding during war, economic boom and bust, student unrest, political upheaval, tax revolt and demographic change... Pawel presents a sweeping story of an institution that sits at the heart of California, defining the state’s ethos and identity more than any other. California Dreams makes an immense contribution to our understanding of the Golden State

California Review of Books

What better time to examine the University of California system and its role in education, research, employment and leadership in the state and around the world?

UC Davis Magazine

A powerful and inspiring history of one of America's greatest public institutions. Miriam Pawel shows how the University of California helped shape not only a state, but generations of lives. Essential reading for anyone who believes in the transformative power of education.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, UCLA Grad 1969, Recipient of UCLA Medal (1997) and the UC Presidential Medal (2024)

In California Dreams, Miriam Pawel tells the unbelievable story of the University of California and how it overcame parochialism and prejudice to transform itself–decade by decade–into a multi-ethnic engine of intellectual advancement and economic opportunity. In a time of terminal cynicism, Pawel gives us hope.

Jerry Brown, former governor of California

In California Dreams, her impressively researched, gracefully written history of the University of California, Miriam Pawel reminds us of the indispensable contributions American public universities have made and, one hopes, will continue to make to the health, vitality, and resilience of this nation and its peoples.

David Nasaw, Bancroft Prize winner and two-time Pulitzer finalist

Miriam Pawel knows California like few other writers. California Dreams is a fascinating biography of the University of California, a $50 billion public university behemoth, and a shining engine of intellectual innovation, propelling millions of hard-working people into the middle-class. Pawel’s lively history demonstrates that the university has always been a controversial battleground for our own national struggles over equity, free speech, and liberal thought. But in the age of Donald Trump, this book is a must read for anyone concerned about the unprecedented attacks on our nation’s public and private universities.

Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of AMERICAN SCOUNDREL and AMERICAN PROMETHEUS, the basis for the Academy Award-winning film OPPENHEIMER

California Dreams is a beautifully written and masterfully executed account of the nation's most renowned and preeminent public university system. It traces the democratic ethos that animated the University's founding, analyzes its evolution into an exemplar of excellence and opportunity, documents its vital contributions to the growth and wealth of the Golden State, and describes its deep and sometimes fraught connections to the vast array of students it educates, scholars who research and teach on its campuses, and constituents who hold it accountable. It is a must-read for those who believe in the transformative potential of public education--and for those who do not.

Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Dean, Harvard Radcliffe Institute; author of CIVIL RIGHTS QUEEN and COURAGE TO DISSENT

The University of California system is inseparable from California’s rise as a global leader in innovation and economic power. In this sweeping yet intimate narrative, Miriam Pawel tells the UC story through the experiences of individuals whose lives illuminate the system’s extraordinary reach and how it shaped not only the state’s remarkable rise but also America’s debates over equality, excellence, and opportunity. This book cements Pawel’s place alongside Carey McWilliams and Kevin Starr as one of the foremost storytellers of California history.

Natalia Molina, Distinguished Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern California; President-elect, Organization of American Historians

How do you write a great book about the history of the University of California? Pair the dreams of people whose lives were utterly changed by this remarkable system of higher education with the dreams of those who took is as their mission to build it and make it work. Most important: have it all come together through the research and writing of one of our most perceptive interpreters of history and hope in the Golden State. A timely, beautiful book.

William Deverell, Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West

California Dreams is a valuable and relatable history of the nation's most socially mobile, continually innovative, and numerically astonishing public university system. That Miriam Pawel tells this epic narrative through the stories of five graduates whose lives and learning illuminate the ways UC has changed the nation and the world, is brilliant. As a Distinguished Professor at UC Riverside, but also as a woman whose mother is an immigrant who was not able to graduate from high school, I am that first generation Californian who loves teaching in this massive system; my thousands of students, a large percentage of first-generation Californians as well, have also changed the world already with their innovative writing, research, and love for community. They are physicians, novelists, historians, scientists, and yes, professors.

Susan Straight, award-winning novelist and Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, UC Riverside