Publications
Published in partnership with the University of California Press, ICW’s scholarly series Western Histories questions and deepens collective understanding of the history of California and the American West. In addition to the partnership with UC Press, ICW has published stand-alone texts, Form and Landscape and Past Due and more.
Western Histories
A series published by ICW in partnership with the University of California Press. Western Histories will continue the tradition of publishing outstanding books on the American West by drawing on the innovative programs of the Huntington-USC Institute for California and the West. The Western Histories series will enliven and enrich our collective understanding of the significance of California and the American West.
See all the Western Histories books for purchase on the UC Press site:
https://www.ucpress.edu/series.php?ser=wh
Select books previously from the Huntington Library Press are now distributed by Angel City Press, and are available for purchase online:
Past Due: Report and Recommendations of the Los Angeles Mayor’s Office Civic Memory Working Group
The Los Angeles Mayor’s Office Civic Memory Working Group, convened for its first meeting by Mayor Eric Garcetti in November of 2019 in City Hall, consists of 40 historians, indigenous elders and scholars, architects, artists, curators, designers, and other civic and cultural leaders. Its main charge as it worked across 2020 and into 2021 was to produce a series of recommendations to help Los Angeles, so long in thrall to its reputation as a city of the future, engage more productively and honestly with its past—especially where that past is fraught or has been buried or whitewashed. The Working Group’s report – published by ICW, and an accompanying website, was released on April 15, 2021, with 18 key recommendations complemented by subcommittee reports; essays and photo essays; and interviews and roundtable discussions on significant topics.
Published by ICW with assistance from the J. Paul Getty Trust.
Designed by Polymode in Los Angeles, CA
Printed by Schulman Group at Shapco Printing in Minneapolis, MN
Form and Landscape: Southern California Edison and the Los Angeles Basin, 1940-1990
In 2013, the Getty Foundation launched Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A. As part of that sweeping project, which funded more than a dozen exhibits and related programs across Southern California, William Deverell and Greg Hise put together Form and Landscape: Southern California Edison and the Los Angeles Basin, 1940-1990, an online exhibit (available at pstp-edison.com). By way of the contributions of project curators, the exhibit featured hundreds of stunning photographs of greater Los Angeles drawn from the Huntington’s Southern California Edison archive. Originally imagined by Edison photographers as visual tools documenting the impact of technology and electricity on metropolitan growth, the photographs—as seen through the eyes of the curators whom Deverell and Hise invited to the archive—depict social and cultural dynamics across an era of profound change. This book is the physical manifestation of that collaborative, exciting project.
Designed by Magyn Kydd, magynkydd.com in Los Angeles, CA
Printed by Edition One Books in Berkeley, CA
Form and Landscape is available only in limited edition copies as a gift in return for financial support of ICW. Please contact William Deverell, deverell@usc.edu. Limited editon museum-quality prints of Southern California Edison photographs are also available.
Water and Los Angeles: A Tale of Three Rivers, 1900 – 1941
William F. Deverell and Tom Sitton
Los Angeles rose to significance in the first half of the twentieth century by way of its complex relationship to three rivers: the Los Angeles, the Owens, and the Colorado. The remarkable urban and suburban trajectory of southern California since then cannot be fully understood without reference to the ways in which each of these three river systems came to be connected to the metropolitan future of the region. This history of growth must be understood in full consideration of all three of these rivers and the challenges and opportunities they presented to those who would come to make Los Angeles a global power. Full of primary sources and original documents, Water and Los Angeles is of interest to both students of Los Angeles and general readers interested in the origins of the city.
A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s open access publishing program for monographs.
The Skid Row Reader
Dan Johnson.
The Skid Row Reader is an experimental adult literacy textbook created to nourish reading skills in students who are recovering from a host of afflictions that contribute to chronic homelessness. Created as a response to inadequate and out-of-touch teaching materials, the effort is built around themes of history, perception and context that center students in a sense of social geography and shared experience. The text encourages “digressive learning.” Each chapter is conceived as a launching point for personal association, discussion and an exploration of corollary topics rather than the imposition of a rote lesson. Contributors include Patricia Nelson Limerick, Michael Lesy, David Shields, Sam Sweet, D. Randall Blythe, Liz Goldwyn, Daniel Levitin, Erik Davis, Larry Harnisch, Terry Stevenson, Max Felker-Kantor, Jonathan Gillette and more.
The Skid Row Reader is online in the depths of social media at https://www.facebook.com/SkidRowReader/.
