Reviews

Miriam Pawel’s fascinating book charts four generations of the Brown family …Pawel bills her family saga as a ‘lens through which to tell a unique history of the 31^st state’ but it does much more. Her engaging narrative of the politics, ideas and policies of the two Edmund Browns illuminates the sea change in the nation’s politics in the last half of the 20^thcentury. – New York Times Book Review– Lisa McGirr, Sept. 16, 2018 Full review: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/14/books/review/miriam-pawel-browns-of-california.html

Pawel charts the family’s fortunes from the 1852 arrival of Augustus Schuckman, Pat Brown’s maternal grandfather, to Jerry Brown’s unprecedented fourth term as governor. To do that, she must summarize countless issues, events and movements, many of them complex. That she does so quickly and deftly is no small part of her achievement. Pawel’s narrative is unflaggingly direct, but it also functions as deep art, for the book is actually a history of California posing as a family portrait. Whether it’s the Gold Rush, Japanese internment, Free Speech Movement, Watts riots, Proposition 13 or climate change, the Brown story reflects large portions of California’s past and much of its present….a skillful portrait.–San Francisco Chronicle- Peter Richardson, Sept. 9, 2018 – Link to full review: https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/books/the-browns-of-california-by-miriam-pawel

Ms. Pawel, with her extensive interviews, deep archival research and brilliant synthesis, has made an enormous contribution to the historical record. – Wall Street Journal, Sept. 17, 2018  Full review: https://t.co/0kvtJEzJud

In an elegantly structured and engrossing new book, The Browns of California, longtime California writer Miriam Pawel argues it’s one family in particular that has helped California become not just an exceptional hunk of land on the edge of an ocean but an ever-updating blueprint for all the ways America can be better… [A] wonderful and essential book. – Los Angeles Times, Sept. 23, 2018 Full review: http://www.latimes.com/books/la-ca-jc-browns-of-california-20180919-htmlstory.html

Miriam Pawel’s masterly, multigenerational history, The Browns of California, takes as its subject the political dimensions of the California Dream as embodied by arguably its most prominent political family… One of the many strengths of The Browns of California is the way Pawel projects the history of California onto the Brown family (including the political careers of Pat and Jerry Brown), lending intimacy and detail to what might have been a sweeping, superficial narrative in less capable hands…The Browns of California will stand as an authoritative guide to a political family and their fascinating, if confounding, home state. – America Magazine https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2019/03/08/review-authoritative-guide-californias-most-prominent-political-family

Deeply researched and engagingly written … the story of the Brown family is, above all, a California story. – Commonweal Magazine Full review here: https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/father-son-pacific-coast

In vibrant detail, Pawel introduces us to the parts of California that mattered most to the Browns, revealing how the state forged its leading political dynasty. To bring this four-generation story together, Pawel consulted archives across the state and conducted extensive interviews with Governor Brown, his family members, and longtime associates. As a result, the Brown family story is enlivened with densely textured settings and carefully selected vignettes…This is not a comprehensive California history disguised as political biography. This is something new: a California panorama and an intimate family portrait captured in a single frame. – Los Angeles Review of Books, Full review here https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/california-sons-miriam-pawels-the-browns-of-california/ 

The Browns of California is a sympathetic and fascinating study of a father and son, and an elegant narrative history of a complicated land and its people. – Santa Fe New Mexican, Full review here:  http://www.santafenewmexican.com/pasatiempo/books/the-browns-of-california-the-family-dynasty-that-transformed-a/article_53c07963-e970-5fb9-b524-c1d552fb2290.html 

In the Brown family, Pawel has found an ideal lens to view 20th-century California. –The National Book Review: 5 Hot Books 

A rich history of California, illuminated with small historical details that are a testament to Pawel’s research. In her capable hands, readers will find the Browns and California captivating subjects. -Publishers Weekly, starred review

Pawel expertly mines family archives, oral histories, and interviews with contemporary sources to fully and for the first time chronicle the origins and accomplishments of this remarkable clan.This fine and engaging political saga tracks both the Brown family and the growth of the state they have served. -Booklist, starred review.

A vivid portrait of California’s land and people emerges from a sympathetic family biography . . . A well-informed history of a powerful dynasty. ―Kirkus

Miriam Pawel has written a remarkable book–a generational biography of a political dynasty, ranging from the California Gold Rush to the presidency of Donald Trump. She recounts the pivotal governorship of Pat Brown and the even more significant career of his son Jerry with assured prose and a keen sense of historical context. This is the engrossing saga of complicated family at the center of American political life for the last sixty years. – T.J. Stiles, Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for CUSTER’S TRIALS and THE FIRST TYCOON

The Browns of California is a beautifully written, exquisitely researched, and magnificent example of how history can be written as biography–and biography as history. – David Nasaw, author of THE PATRIARCHY: THE REMARKABLE LIFE AND TURBULENT TIMES OF JOSEPH P. KENNEDY

The Browns of California is a compelling, crucial read for anyone who wants to understand the state’s importance on the world stage, at a time that matters more than ever. It’s a fascinating history that also humanizes the enigmatic Jerry Brown, a morally courageous politician who got his start in the anti-Vietnam War movement and has become a major voice on the urgency of the nuclear threat and a leader–governing a state that is the world’s sixth largest economy–in curbing the other existential threat to civilization, climate change. – Daniel Ellsberg, author of THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE

Miriam Pawel’s multigenerational portrait of the quirky, contentious, and complicated Brown family captures the sprawling history of California as well as its often self-deluding mythology. As fascinating as the state, this book is essential for anyone who wants to understand modern California. – Richard White, Margaret Byrne Professor of American History, Stanford University

Miriam Pawel did it again. After her wonderful biography of Cesar Chávez, she masterfully writes about the influence of the Brown family in the transformation of California for more than a century. Pat and Jerry Brown, both, became governors. But theirs is not your typical political family. The letters and exchanges between Jerry, the seminarian, and Pat, the governor, are fascinating, insightful and provocative. This book wisely demonstrates that in California you can shape your own future and that second chances are real . . . if your family is behind you. The Browns of California is an essential book to understand how the United States is a country in perpetual creation. – Jorge Ramos, Univision news anchor