Book Talk! Paul Haddad's INVENTING PARADISE

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Inventing Paradise: The Power Brokers Who Created the Dream of Los Angeles traces the improbable rise of Los Angeles through the prism of six visionaries who had outsize influence on the city's growth: Phineas Banning, Harrison Gray Otis, Henry Huntington, Harry Chandler, William Mulholland, and Moses Sherman.

In the late 1870s, Los Angeles was a violent, dusty, 29-square-mile pueblo with a few thousand souls, largely unchanged since its founding in 1781. By 1930, its size had swelled to within 96% of its current 468 square miles, housing a staggering 1.2 million people. In just 50 years, L.A. had joined the ranks of other world-class cities.

In the tradition of Mike Davis's classic work City of Quartz, Paul Haddad (Freewaytopia and 10,000 Steps a Day in L.A.) debunks many myths about the City of Angels with a wildly entertaining narrative that sheds new light on the fascinating birth of modern Los Angeles. Power came from a select few, whose triumphs, scandals, and correspondence are well documented in Inventing Paradise, along with other little-known facts about L.A. history.

Haddad also covers the heavy costs that came with creating paradise in such a short period of time, including car dependency, environmental problems, and deep-seated inequities between wealthy white Angelenos and people of color due to racist policies. All have left an imprint on present-day Los Angeles.

Los Angeles is a city that should not exist--and yet it does. Through Inventing Paradise, Haddad shows readers that Los Angeles is not a paradise found, but a paradise that was willed into existence, owing to the collective vision of these six Gilded Era-born tycoons.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Paul Haddad's books include the critically acclaimed Freewaytopia: How Freeways Shaped Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times bestseller 10,000 Steps a Day in L.A.: 57 Walking Adventures, and High Fives, Pennant Drives, and Fernandomania: A Fan's History of the Los Angeles Dodgers' Glory Years, 1977-1981 (named one of the Best Baseball Books of 2012 by the Daily News). As a Hollywood-born native, he has written about Los Angeles for the L.A. Times, LAist, and HuffPo. He has authored three novels, including the L.A. Noir Paradise Palms: Red Menace Mob. A graduate of USC's School of Cinematic Arts, Haddad has been nominated for multiple Emmys as a documentary producer.

ABOUT THE INTERLOCUTOR:

Tony Pierce is a writer and editor living in East Hollywood. He is host of the Hear in LA podcast where he goes to every neighborhood in LA and hears from the people. Tony first moved to LA in 1984. At night he drives for Uber and Lyft and is compiling stories from his favorite trips on his Substack called Ride Overhare. Formerly the Blog Editor of the LA Times, Tony also writes about rock concerts on Setlist.fm.

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