Pulitzer Prize–winner Miriam Pawel's epic history of the world's largest higher educational institution, the University of California, its sweeping social impact, and what it can teach us in a time of crisis.

Set apart by its founding mission to be an engine of upward mobility, the University of California system—constitutionally independent, a public trust—is a great American experiment that has endured through fraught battles over access, funding, and leadership and the looming crisis in education.

The University has been at the nexus of nearly every public policy decision and social movement in the Golden State since the Civil War, from affirmative action to immigration to student protests. California Dreams narrates the UC's rise and resilience through the lens of those whose lives it has transformed—in particular, five pioneering graduates whose diverse paths underscore why, though imperfectly so, the UC remains, in the words of Berkeley graduate Joan Didion, "California's best idea of itself."

At a time of staggering inequality and uncertainty, as higher education faces unprecedented threats, that role has never been more crucial—or more difficult. California Dreams weaves the history of the inexorably linked school and state in all its drama, significance, and humanity, providing analysis of the University's roots with an incisive lesson, and a glimmer of hope, for our future.