California Collection Images

A collection of California works: Statutes & Codes back to 1854, Hetch Hetchy (1926), Land & Water treatises, & Colorado River maps (1946)

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Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath

 I will spare you my literary analysis and interpretations on the American classic: The Grapes of Wrath. However, the book is fraught with intense imagery, symbolism, themes, and a struggle of family versus the machinations of business. Moreover, the work plays upon nature to highlight the difficulties a family can face even though a ripe earth waits to support them.

California has a rich history, plentiful in goodness and even more so in heinousness. For me the American story is largely one that doesn’t lead to success. It leads to downfall and constant suffering in the face of a capitalistic and indifferent world. For a greater part of American history there has been starvation, slave wages, suppression of free speech, and other transgressions against American citizens. This book is the real American story and the founding families of our western country. Our social responsibility has improved quite a bit within only 60 to 70 years; but reflecting upon this kind of past leads to a greater appreciation of our history and contemporary times.

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