L.A. City Limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present

Rating:
Summary: historical intelligence in social storytelling
Review: This is a great book. A special book. Here's why:

Josh Sides has given Los Angeles the kind of racial history that Mike Davis brought to bear on our popular image of the city and the kind of countervailing narrative that Chester Himes might have appreciated. This book's detailed look at Los Angeles shows us how the city's racial texture has changed, but it is also concerned to challenge how lazy we have all become in habitually characterizing racial LA as a city that can be reduced to the Watts Riots, OJ, gang violence, and Rodney King. As Sides tells the story, Los Angeles presents with a genuinely American paradox. Its racial story is a narrative of strife and difficulty, but it is also one of success and hope that rivals any other city's in the United States.

This book is perfectly readable, and it leaves you wondering how we can all think more carefully about what is actually happening in America, beneath easy stereotypes and lazy, stock media representations of race.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent text
Review: Well researched, written, accessible, and informative.
Useful to anyone interested in LA history, African-American history, and urban studies. A good book for undergrads, too.