Official Review: Los Angeles Biographies by Paul McClure

[Unique Ego]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Los Angeles Biographies" by Paul McClure.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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Taking a trip down memory lane is often an inspiring experience. The way past dates, events, and historical figures connect and lead to our current reality is a marvel for most people. This book chronicles the events that led up to the discovery of Los Angeles, from the time of the voyagers and discoverers to our present day. It is also a commemoration of the men and women that played vital roles in the emergence of present-day Los Angeles. Los Angeles Biographies is full of moments that will boost your appreciation of the history and culture of this great city.

By virtue of the book's genre and intention, it sounded flat to me at times. This shouldn't really be surprising as this book is mainly a repository of historical information; it was chock-full of names, dates, places, and events, most of which were unfamiliar to me. I did warm up to the book's style and objective eventually, but I struggled not to skim read at first. I liked that the author divided this book into four sections: Spanish Colonial Era, Mexican Rancho Era, American Business Era, and Modern Era. Each section covered different phases of LA's history. Also, all the chapters in each section were named after important historical figures that contributed to the emergence of modern-day Los Angeles. I loved how each of these figures had their own ideologies and personal idiosyncrasies—from Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in the 1500s to the likes of Walt Disney in the 1900s—but were still bound by one vision: to establish an entity for the ages. This was the best thing about the book for me.

Being a member of the Los Angeles Corral of Westerners, the author, Paul McClure, is unsurprisingly a history buff. The amount of information in this text was proof of the meticulous research that went into penning it. This level of detail is worthy of commendation.

In addition to the wealth of information in the text, there were also many drawings, photographs, and maps to support the author's points. At the end of each chapter, there was an index section listing all the resources—books, websites, and pictures—that were referenced in this book. The book's foreword pointed out a significant dearth of history education in the state's academic curriculum at all levels. I can imagine Los Angeles Biographies being a resounding solution to that problem.

Although in practice, one book can't be enough to exhaustively detail the history of a city such as Los Angeles, this book came reasonably close. Being an editor himself, I'm not surprised that I didn't find a single grammar or typo error in McClure's work. The book was exceptionally well edited. I rate it 4 out of 4 stars due to its wealth of information and the fact that it's solving a massive problem in education. In giving my rating, I didn't consider the flat reading moments I experienced because those were purely subjective issues on my part. This book isn't designed to be a one-off read; it's a reference book and would make sense as a textbook in schools across California. With this in mind, I recommend this book to people who want a robust historical resource about some of the greatest cities in the United States. Who knows, someone may one day make a movie about some of the characters in this book.

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Los Angeles Biographies
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[Kavita Shah]

A lot of research has been carried out here which talks about how LA came to be the place it is today. This textbook/ Reference book that will be useful for many students. Thank you for the review.

[Wildflowertheorist]

I'll give this one a pass. But I'm glad that the author has carried out soo much research to make a worth reference book.
Nicely written!

[Becca Olsson]

This genre certainly isn’t for everyone, but it sounds like the author has at least done his homework very thoroughly. I think I would like that he included maps and other such things to back up what he’s saying. Thanks for the insightful review