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The King of California

J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire

The King of California Open the full-size image

Contributors

By Mark Arax

By Rick Wartzman

Formats and Prices

On Sale
Feb 16, 2005
Page Count
592 pages
Publisher
PublicAffairs
ISBN-13
9781586482817

Price

$25.99

Price

$33.99 CAD

Format

Format:

  1. Trade Paperback $25.99 $33.99 CAD
  2. ebook $13.99 $17.99 CAD

Buy from Other Retailers:

The “meticulous” (The New Yorker) and “ground-breaking” (The Los Angeles Times) story of a cotton magnate whose voracious appetite for land drove him to create the first big agricultural empire of the Central Valley of California, and shaped the landscape for decades to come.

J.G. Boswell was the biggest farmer in America. He built a secret empire while thumbing his nose at nature, politicians, labor unions and every journalist who ever tried to lift the veil on the ultimate “factory in the fields.” The King of California is the previously untold account of how a Georgia slave-owning family migrated to California in the early 1920s,drained one of America ‘s biggest lakes in an act of incredible hubris and carved out the richest cotton empire in the world. Indeed, the sophistication of Boswell ‘s agricultural operation -from lab to field to gin — is unrivaled anywhere.

Much more than a business story, this is a sweeping social history that details the saga of cotton growers who were chased from the South by the boll weevil and brought their black farmhands to California. It is a gripping read with cameos by a cast of famous characters, from Cecil B. DeMille to Cesar Chavez.

Genre:

  • “Passionate, fair-minded, thought-provoking and groundbreaking…Thoroughly moving, deeply rendered and utterly trustworthy.”
    Los Angeles Times
  • “A remarkably detailed and eye-opening portrait."
    Washington Post
  • “A meticulous narrative of the rise of the cotton magnate James G. Boswell.”
    New Yorker
  • “With obstinate bravura, [Arax and Wartzman] rip down curtains that have veiled this valley…For scope and readability, these guys shine.”
    San Diego Union-Tribune
  • “A landmark and improbably entertaining book.”
    San Francisco Chronicle
  • “An alluring and fascinating account…A rollicking tale.”
    Raleigh News and Observer
  • “Intelligently fair-minded.”
    Economist
  • "A tour de force"
    Seattle Times
  • "For readers seeking a weave of corporate history, family biography and insight into the devil's bargain Americans have made with big agriculture, there is no more colorful a tale than The King of California." 
    Chicago Tribune

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Mark Arax

About the Author

Mark Arax is a bestselling author and journalist whose writings on California and the West have received numerous awards for literary nonfiction. A former staffer at the Los Angeles Times, his work has appeared in the New York Times and the California Sunday Magazine. His books include The Dreamt Land, In My Father’s Name, West of the West, and the bestselling The King of California, which won a California Book Award, the William Saroyan Prize from Stanford University and was named a top book of 2004 by the L.A. Times. He lives in Fresno.

Learn more about this author

Rick Wartzman

About the Author

Rick Wartzman is head of the KH Moon Center for a Functioning Society at the Drucker Institute, a part of Claremont Graduate University. His commentary for Fast Company was recognized by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing with its Best in Business award for 2018. He has also written for Fortune, Time, Businessweek, and many other publications. His books include The End of Loyalty: The Rise and Fall of Good Jobs in America, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Current Interest and named one of the best books of 2017 by strategy+business; Obscene in the Extreme: The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History and a PEN USA Literary Award; and The King of California: J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire (with Mark Arax), which won a California Book Award and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing.

Learn more about this author