Peter Schrag takes on the big issues immigration, globalization, and the impact of California's politics on its quality of life in this dynamic account of the Golden State's struggle to recapture the American dream. In the past half-century, California has been both model and anti-model for the nation and often the world, first for its high level of government and public services schools, universities, highways and latterly for its dysfunctional government, deteriorating services, and sometimes regressive public policies. "California "explains how many current "solutions" exacerbate the very problems they're supposed to solve and analyzes a variety of possible state and federal policy alternatives to restore government accountability and a vital democracy to the nation's most populous state and the world's fifth-largest economy.