"Envisioning California": An Introduction

Abstract

This special issue of California History presents selected papers from Envisioning California: Peoples, Land and, Policies conference, found ing gathering of a statewide community of Cali fornians devoted to interdisciplinary inquiry into California's history, policies, and future, and to encouraging new academic field of California Studies. February 1989, historians, social sci entists, policy-makers, business people, envi ronmentalists, writers, and artists, along with representatives from labor and ethnic groups, met in Sacramento to share their insights and research, compare divergent perspectives, and collaborate in envisioning?in perceiving and trying to understand ?California, its master trends and possibilities as a whole. This conference was called and hosted by Center for California Studies, California State Uni versity, Sacramento. The California Historical Soci ety provided great support as co-sponsor, as did other organizations, including California Eco nomic Development Corporation, University of California's California Policy Seminar, Cali fornia State Library, Walter and Elise Haas Fund, and Institute of Governmental Studies at University of California, Berkeley. For all its sunshine and open spaces, California has often proven a difficult place to comprehend. In saga of states, Carey McWilliams noted, the chapter that is California has long fascinated credulous and charmed romantic. The burden of fable stretches as far back as Ordones