WHAT CALIFORNIA DREAMS ARE MADE OF

Can we identify the historical roots of California’s 20th-century success?

In a sense, it all started with the gold rush of the mid-19th century, which created much of the wealth that made possible so many other things later on. That’s an interesting way of looking at California – at the accumulation of capital through the past 100, 150 years. It started with the gold rush, then came the advent of Hollywood and, at around the same time, the oil boom.

This accumulation of wealth continued through the Second World War, when California produced many of the aircraft, ships and armaments used to fight – 10% of the whole US war budget was spent in the state. And from the 1950s to the 1980s and into the present day, there was the development of Silicon Valley. So you can see these sedimentary layers of wealth that, notwithstanding