PAMLA member Jeremiah B.C. Axelrod is proud to announce the recent publication of his book, Inventing Autopia: Dreams  and Visions of the Modern Metropolis in Jazz Age Los Angeles (2009), by the University of California Press. Inventing Autopia explores the profound relationship between imagination and place, visuality and legibility, showing how the clash of irreconcilable utopian visions and dreams resulted in the invention of an unforeseen new form of urbanism—sprawling, illegible, fractured—that would reshape not only Southern California but much of the nation in the years to come: http://inventingautopia.com

Stanford University Emeritus Professor of Humanities, Marjorie Perloff, says that “this book belongs on your shelf next to Reyner Banham and Mike Davis, but Axelrod is more learned than either… [it] is also immensely readable!”

University of California English Professor John Ganim adds, “Flat-out one of the most interesting books I’ve read in years. To say that a book about California might rank with Kevin Starr’s Americans and the California Dream or Mike Davis’ City of Quartz is dangerously high praise, but I think Axelrod’s book may someday be in that league.”