ABSTRACT
Even the origin of California's name has a sense of allure. "California" first appeared in a Spanish romance novel written by Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo in 1510. In the book, California is described as an imaginary island, an earthly paradise somewhere east of Asia. California is the nation's largest agricultural state, yielding twice as much farm products annually as number two Texas and number three Iowa combined. The strong environmental community has also weighed in on agricultural water use in terms of quantity and quality. Environmentalists have also stood up to farmers on their use of pesticides as threats to the food chain and human consumption—yet another indicator of the ongoing struggle between groups of different values in California politics. California emerged from World War II as an employment factory. The end of the Cold War in the early 1990s not only changed international relations, but also hit the state's economy hard.
