ABSTRACT
California has always been viewed as unique. Historian Carey McWilliams argues that the state is “exceptional” in its evolution-different from any other region of the globe and inhabited by a different breed of individuals. For McWilliams, California is “no ordinary state. It is an anomaly, a freak, the great exception among the American states.”1 The novelist Christopher Isherwood once called California “a tragic land-like Palestine, like every promised land.”2 Isherwood’s comparison of California to the metaphoric New Jerusalem suggests both a biblical utopia, a cornucopia of natural resources and yet an unsettled and tragic land, consumed by the turmoil of its people. It may be the earthly representation of the Garden of Eden or the twisted torment of paradise. Critics may deride California, its unique culture, its diversity and unconventional politics. But dismissing California belies its cultural and political significance. The Golden State is a dominant exporter of ideas. California’s popular culture is emulated from rural West Africa to the crowded capitals of the Pacific Rim. The state’s policy debates-ranging from the sublime to the surreal-are exported to the rest of the United States as grassroots movements and policy innovations. Thus from tax revolts to gay rights, from affirmative action to immigration, from term limits to welfare reform, California is widely viewed as a cradle of cutting-edge social and political movements.
