A Changing California
by Jack Carney
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jack CarneyEdition: Paperback
Published: 2006
ISBN: 1879861232
Publisher: CONSENSUS
Book Reviews of A Changing California
Book Review: Political Propaganda: A sorry Excuse for a Textbook
Summary: 1 Stars
'A Changing California' claims to be a "lucid and brief, but comprehensive study of California state government." And indeed, the book does provide some reasonably accurate information on how the California constitution is ammended and the structure of state courts. Unfortunately, this book is primarily a long (longwinded?) political diatribe. At best, one could say that Prof. Carney is extremely biased, but his outright misrepresentation of facts is so blatant that this work might better be compared to propaganda. It is truly unfortunate that so many students in community and state colleges are forced to use this book.
One gets an inkling of Prof. Carney's perspective when he titles chapter 1 "American Conquest of the California Province." One might wonder why he did not begin with the Mexican "conquest" of the Spanish claims in California (a mere 20 years earlier) or the Spanish "conquest" of California from the Native Americans who lived there prior to the expedition of Juan Cabrillo and the subsequent mission period. But such a question would be naive because throughout the book Carney's purpose is always first and foremost to present the United States in the worst possible light. This requires, of course, a few distortions of history. The Mexican American war, in his convoluted vision, is essentially over California and the decision of the US government to "force" its sale. One would never gather, from reading this "textbook" that the war actually started over Texas. The Texas Republic had won independence from Mexico in 1836 as part of a larger uprising against General Santa Ana that included locales in present day Mexico, notably Yucatan and Jalisco. It was the Mexican government's refusal to honor its own peace treaty that led to war after the US annexation of Texas. California, an unsuccessful participant in the earlier rebellion, was actually something of an afterthought in the conflict. Nonetheless, these inconvenient facts which are common knowledge among virtually all historians, never appear in Carney's discussion. Instead, he lists casualties of the war and implies all of them were in California. As an aside, he overstates dramatically the most common estimates of these casualties: listing 40,000 for Mexico (actual figure, 25,000) and 13,000 for the United States (actual figure, 12,000). Actual fighting in California, of course, was nowhere near this bloody. In the battle of San Pascual, for example, American forces, the losers, suffered 31 casualties: 18 dead and 13 injured. I don't wish to belittle the loss of any human lives, but Carney has so overstated his case that his book actually undermines, rather than promotes, a serious education. Indeed, one would never learn from Carney that, as in the case of Texas, many Hispanics opposed the regime of Santa Ana and fought for the opportunity to join the United States.
But chapter 1 is merely a warm up for Prof. Carney. In the rest of the book he tells us we should offer reparations to blacks because of slavery. Even if one could justify this policy (how about reparations for those who fought and died to end slavery?) this is obviously a federal issue, and not related to California state government at all. But then, much of this book is more about the political views of Prof. Carney than about its ostensible subject, California state government. Even when he is discussing issues that directly relate to California, his biases are apparent and his facts are either non-existent or misrepresented. For example, he claims "Prop. 207" attempted to "ban" bilingual education in California. Now, aside from the fact that the proposition was actually 227, Carney has misstated its purpose. The proposition actually gave Spanish speaking parents the option of bilingual or structured immersion classes and it came about as a result of complaints by immigrant activists who (rightly) saw bilingual education as a "separate" education which often had inferior and uncredentialed teachers. Normally, of course, the state education bureaucracy would hardly bother to listen to parents, much less immigrant parents, but in this case they received monetary support from Ron Unz, a wealthy Republican businessman who sought to bring immigrants to into a broader Republican coalition. Why would Carney not tell this story which is exceedingly interesting and can help students understand California politics? The main reason, of course, is that he wants to claim California voters are racist (at least white Republican ones) and the facts surrounding this proposition conflict with the fairy tale he wants to construct. One could go on and on in this vein. Carney, for example, laments that treaties to give California Indians "their" lands back have languished in the US Senate. He of course neglects to mention that it was the secularization of missions by the Mexican government that cost the Indians "their" land in the first place. But Carney would never present Mexico in a bad light so instead he attacks the US Senate. This sort of nonsense and callous disregard for basic historical facts runs throughout the book.
Unfortunately, for better or for worse, this book is a major textbook. It is now in its 11th edition and will probably see a 12th edition soon. Lacking an annotated bibliography and an index, it is almost impossible to use it selectively. You are stuck with reading every one of Carney's pompous opinions if you want to come to even a limited understanding of California government. If you are reading 'Changing California' so that you can complete the California government requirements for your degree, you have my full sympathy. Try to avoid paying full price. My only advice, if you want to truly understand California government and politics, is to independently verify every single claim in the book. And if you really want to get your money's worth for your education dollar, ask your professor why he or she is assigning a book like this to you. California students are being asked to share a larger and larger portion of the costs of their education. You deserve better.
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