George L. Henderson: California and the Fictions of Capital

<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" vlink="#CC0000" alink="#CC0000"><center><hr width="350" size="1" align="center" noshade>The development and meaning of agriculture in late-19th century California<hr width="350" size="1" align="center" noshade><p><a href="https://cdcshoppingcart.uchicago.edu/Cart/ChicagoBook.aspx?ISBN=9781592131983&&PRESS=temple" target="_top">Buy this book!</a> | <a href="https://cdcshoppingcart.uchicago.edu/Cart/Cart.aspx?PRESS=temple" target="_top">View Cart</a> | <a href="https://cdcshoppingcart.uchicago.edu/Cart/Cart.aspx?PRESS=temple" target="_top">Check Out</a></p><p><img src="1694_reg.gif" height=200 border=1 vspace=4></p></center><h1>California and the Fictions of Capital</h1> <h3>George L. Henderson</h3> <P>paper 1-59213-198-0 $30.95, Feb 03, <FONT COLOR=#990033>Available</FONT> <BR> 304 pp 6.125x9.25 11 tables 7 map(s) 7 figures 6 halftones </P><BLOCKQUOTE><I>"From its first wonderful line&#151'although he was already dead, Frank Norris had a good year in 1909'&#151to its final question about the role of literature in social change, </I>California and the Fictions of Capital<I> is a brilliant book."</I> <br>&#151<b><i>Antipode</i></b><I></I></BLOCKQUOTE> <p>In part a tour of California as a virtual laboratory for refining the circulation of capital, and in part an investigation of how the state's literati, with rare exception, reconceived economy in the name of class, gender, and racial privilege, this study will appeal to all students and scholars of California's&#151and the American West's&#151economic, environmental, and cultural past. <BR> <h2>Excerpt</h2><P>Excerpt available at <a href="http://www.temple.edu/tempress">www.temple.edu/tempress</a></p> <BR> <h2>Reviews</h2> <p><I>"George L. Henderson harnesses two subjects that would pull an ordinary book apart. On the one hand, </I>California and the Fictions of Capital<I> is a work of criticism with its purpose fixed on a number of pastoral novels set in California...On the other hand, it is a work of geography and economic theory, asserting that the circulation of capital through agriculture is the best way to understand the rise of a modern industrial countryside in California...the two work together to form a convincing picture of place...Henderson reads with an eye as sharp as any I have seen."</I> <br>&#151<b><I>The Journal of American History</I></b> <p><I>"It is the best historical geography of regional agricultural development available... It finally fulfills the promise of putting theories of space and spatiality at the center of literary criticism, adding a new level of sophistication to the burgeoning cultural studies interest in the relationship between space and representation. And it makes a vitally important contribution to California Studies by providing a means to understand the complex relationship between 'race,' general regional culture, and political economy. On top of that, Henderson writes with admirable clarity and a great deal of panache."</I> <br>&#151<b><I>Antipode</I></b> <BR> <h2>Contents</h2><P> <p>Introduction: The Alchemy of Capital and Nature <br><i>Why the Late Nineteenth-Century Countryside? <br>The Discourse of Rural Realism <br>Why Rural Realism, Why the Novel? <br>Stalking the Interdisciplinary Wilds</i> <br>Reference Maps <p><b>Part I: Making Geographies</b> <p>1. Rural Commodity Ragtimes: A Primer <br><i>The Logics and Illogics of Production: The Shift to and out of Grain <br>The Regime of Specialty Crops <br>A Wider Division of Labor: The Country in the City</i> <p>2. Nature and Fictitious Capital: The Circulation of Money Capital <br><i>Capitalism and Nature: The Agrarian Nexus <br>Axis One: The Mann-Dickinson Thesis, Nature as Obstacle <br>Axis Two: Exploiting the Natural Obstacle <br>Keeping Capitalism Out or Letting Capital In? Marx on Circulation <br>Blurred Boundaries and Fugitive Bodies <br>Nature and Circulation <br>Capital, Nature, and the Space-Time of Agro-Credits in the United States <br>Capital, Nature, and the Space-Time of Agro-Credits in California <br>Conclusion: Reading the Landscape of Fictitious Capital</i> <p>3. Toward Rural Realism: Variable Capital, Variable Capitalists, and the Fictions of Capital <br><i>The Way to Get Farm Labor? <br>The Ever-New, Ever-Same, 1: Continuity of Wage Labor and Changes in the Wage Labor Market <br>The Ever-New, Ever-Same, 2: Resistance and Reaction <br>Racializing the Working Body and Multicultural Racism <br>Toward Rural Realism: An Agrarianism without Illusions? <br>Variable Capitalists All: Capitalist Laborers and the Fictions of Capital in Country and City <br>Coda: The Labor of Fiction</i> <p><b>Part II: Excavating Geographical Imaginations</b> <br><i>Introduction <br>Many Countrysides <br>The Trials of Capital and Narratives of Social Space <br>The Narrative of Social Space in Rural Realism</i> <p>4. Mussel Slough and the Contradictions of Squatter Capitalism <br><i>The Commodification of Mussel Slough: Railroad, Speculators, and Squatters Converge in the Tulare Basin <br></i>Blood Money<i> and the Anatomy of Development <br>The Country and the City: From Transgression to Similitude <br></i>The Octopus<i> and the Bourgeois Sublime <br>Bourgeois Discourse and the Uses of Nature</i> <p>5. Reality Redux: Landscapes of Boom and Bust in Southern California <br><i>Where Is Southern California? <br>From Ranchos to Real Estate <br>The Boom of the 1880s <br>The Southern California Boom Novel <br>Conclusion: Production, a Necessary Evil</i> <p>6. Romancing the Sand: Earth-Capital and Desire in the Imperial Valley <br><i>The Problem <br>Engineers and Entrepreneurs <br>Producing the Imperial Valley <br>What a Difference a Flood Makes <br>Imperial Valley Representations, 1: Promotion and Its (Dis)Contents <br>Imperial Valley Representations, 2: </i>The Winning of Barbara Worth<i> and the Erotics of Western Conquest <br>Conclusion: Engineering Rural Realism</i> <p>7. Take Me to the River: Water, Metropolitan Growth, and the Countryside <br><i>Designer Ducts <br>Los Angeles and the Owens Valley <br>San Francisco and Hetch Hetchy Valley <br>Rural Eclipse: </i>The Water-Bearer<i> and </i>The Ford<i> <br>Wither Rural Realism?</i> <p>Conclusion <br>Notes <br>References <br>Index </P><BR> <H2>About the Author(s)</H2> <P><b>George L. Henderson</b> is Professor of Geography at the University of Minnesota.</P> <BR><H2>Subject Categories</H2> <p><A HREF="/tempress/american.html" TARGET="_top">American Studies</a> <BR> <BR><A HREF="/tempress/literature.html" TARGET="_top">Literature and Drama</a> </p> <BR><h2 class="inpageheading">In the series</H2> <P><I><a href="http://www.temple.edu/tempress/pcp.html" onMouseOver="window.status='Click for other books in this series!'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;" target="_top">Place, Culture, and Politics</a></i>, edited by Neil Smith. </p><p><i>Place, Culture, and Politics</i> is edited by Neil Smith, Graduate Center, City University of New York. Many of the most pressing political issues today are widely understood to occupy the nexus between place, culture and politics. Books in this series will make clear the pivotal role of space and place in questions of politics and culture. The series is interdisciplinary, ranging freely between the social sciences and humanities and, to a lesser extent, the physical and life sciences. The primary aim of these texts will be to influence public opinion more than to increase the purely academic stock of knowledge. Books will be explicitly political; they will have a point of view, multiple points of view, and will engage current events and ideas.</p> <p align="center"><a href="https://cdcshoppingcart.uchicago.edu/Cart/ChicagoBook.aspx?ISBN=9781592131983&&PRESS=temple" target="_top">Buy this book!</a> | <a href="https://cdcshoppingcart.uchicago.edu/Cart/Cart.aspx?PRESS=temple" target="_top">View Cart</a> | <a href="https://cdcshoppingcart.uchicago.edu/Cart/Cart.aspx?PRESS=temple" target="_top">Check Out</a></p><p><font face="Arial" size="1"><a href="copyright.html" onMouseOver="window.status='Web Copyright Policy';return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''" title="Web Copyright Policy">©</a> 2015 <a href="http://www.temple.edu" target="new" onMouseOver="window.status='Link to Temple University home page';return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''" title="Link to Temple University home page">Temple University</a>. All Rights Reserved. http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/1694_reg.html</font></p>