ABSTRACT
What adjective best describes California? Prosperous, forward looking, eccentric, nuts, laid back, “lala land,” sun loving, gross, dazzling? It has been called all these things and many more. And there is a measure of truth in them all, though many outside the state take the image created by Hollywood too seriously. The word the authors prefer is complex. California is many things. It is large cities and small farms. It is forests and deserts. There is a wider range of ethnic groups than can be found anywhere, perhaps anywhere in the world. There are multimillionaires and there are the homeless, the liberals of San Francisco and the conservatives of San Diego. As we have written in other editions of this text, California is a phenomenon, and it is the rich variety of the state, its land and people, that make it such a fascinating place to study. But in order to understand the government and politics of the state we must first gain some knowledge of these people and the resourceseconomic, cultural, and natural-that make it what it is.
