The roiling history of a 'multiversity.' Drawing on extensive archival sources, memoirs, and interviews, Pawel recounts the birth, rise, and ongoing transformations of the 'ten campuses, six health centers, three national laboratories, and hundreds of programs and research centers' that comprise the University of California...Recent assaults on higher education make California's story newly relevant. A timely, sweeping examination of a major institution of higher education.

Kirkus (starred review)

A powerful and inspiring history of one of America's greatest public institutions. Miriam Pawel shows how the University of California helped shape not only a state, but generations of lives. Essential reading for anyone who believes in the transformative power of education.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, UCLA Grad 1969, Recipient of UCLA Medal (1997) and the UC Presidential Medal (2024)

In California Dreams, Miriam Pawel tells the unbelievable story of the University of California and how it overcame parochialism and prejudice to transform itself–decade by decade–into a multi-ethnic engine of intellectual advancement and economic opportunity. In a time of terminal cynicism, Pawel gives us hope.

Jerry Brown, former governor of California

In California Dreams, her impressively researched, gracefully written history of the University of California, Miriam Pawel reminds us of the indispensable contributions American public universities have made and, one hopes, will continue to make to the health, vitality, and resilience of this nation and its peoples.

David Nasaw, Bancroft Prize winner and two-time Pulitzer finalist

Miriam Pawel knows California like few other writers. California Dreams is a fascinating biography of the University of California, a $50 billion public university behemoth, and a shining engine of intellectual innovation, propelling millions of hard-working people into the middle-class. Pawel's lively history demonstrates that the university has always been a controversial battleground for our own national struggles over equity, free speech, and liberal thought. But in the age of Donald Trump, this book is a must read for anyone concerned about the unprecedented attacks on our nation's public and private universities.

Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of AMERICAN SCOUNDREL and AMERICAN PROMETHEUS, the basis for the Academy Award-winning film OPPENHEIMER

California Dreams is a beautifully written and masterfully executed account of the nation's most renowned and preeminent public university system. It traces the democratic ethos that animated the University's founding, analyzes its evolution into an exemplar of excellence and opportunity, documents its vital contributions to the growth and wealth of the Golden State, and describes its deep and sometimes fraught connections to the vast array of students it educates, scholars who research and teach on its campuses, and constituents who hold it accountable. It is a must-read for those who believe in the transformative potential of public education--and for those who do not.

Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Dean, Harvard Radcliffe Institute; author of CIVIL RIGHTS QUEEN and COURAGE TO DISSENT