Michael Hiltzik: Expect To Learn As You Work
Michael Hiltzik is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author who has covered business, technology, and public policy for the Los Angeles Times for more than 40 years. He currently serves as the Times’s business columnist and hosts its business blog, The Economy Hub. Hiltzik received the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for articles exposing corruption in the entertainment industry. He lives in Southern California with his family. Follow him on X (Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, and Bluseky.
In this interview, Michael discusses how his love for and curiosity about California led him to write his new historical book, Golden State: The Making of California, his hope for readers, and more.
Name: Michael Hiltzik
Literary agent: Sandra Dijkstra & Associates Literary Agency
Book title: Golden State: The Making of California
Publisher: HarperCollins/Mariner Books
Release date: February 18, 2025
Genre/category: History
Previous titles: Iron Empires: Robber Barons, Railroads and the Making of Modern America; Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention that Launched the Military-Industrial Complex; The New Deal: A Modern History; Colossus: The Turbulent, Thrilling Saga of the Building of Hoover Dam; Dealers of Lighting: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age
Elevator pitch: For more than five centuries, from the arrival of Spanish conquistadores to the modern age, California has been the focus of worldwide attention and curiosity. Few other places on Earth have a history so grand, colorful, and compelling, and Golden State tells the amazing story with all the vividness it deserves.
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What prompted you to write this book?
A long-time resident of California, I fell in love with the state not only as a geographic entity but a state of mind—as with my previous books, I became deeply interested in its history but couldn’t find enough written to satisfy my curiosity, so I resolved to fill in the blanks in my own knowledge and pass them on to my readers.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
It took me more than four years from conception to completion—two years of pure research, another year in which I began to write while continuing to delve into archives and primary sources, and a fourth year devoted mostly to writing and polishing—a bit lengthier process than some of my other books, but not by much.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
I always find that writing a book like this means balancing three elements—the stories that readers will expect to find in it (the Gold Rush, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake), those that they may know something about but not in great detail (the Bear Flag Rebellion of 1846, the progressive revolution under Hiram Johnson in 1911, the conservationist John Muir), and those that they may know nothing about (the movement to statehood, anti-Asian discrimination and the genocide of Indian tribes). In the process I learned more about all those stories and found surprises in every category.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
Perhaps the biggest surprise was discovering the identity of the California politician who played a bigger role than anyone else in advocating and promoting the Japanese incarceration of 1942: then-California Attorney General and future governor Earl Warren, whose appeal for relocating Japanese residents and American citizens was uncompromisingly racist—a real departure from his image as the architect as Chief Justice of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the landmark anti-discrimination decision.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
California dominates American politics, economics, and social policy more than any other state, but it remains a mythical place for most Americans, even among its own residents. Golden State will bring readers an understanding of how centuries of hopes, ambitions, misery, and efforts by entrepreneurs, boosters, charlatans, geniuses, workers, and families built a state that, as the home of one out of every eight Americans is a reflection of America itself.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
The most important thing is to find a subject that you will be happy living with for the years it takes to bring a project to fruition—one whose story will become deeper and more fascinating as one goes along. Writing a book like Golden State is very much an educational process—you should expect to learn as you work, and then take joy in communicating what you’ve learned to your readers. That’s what makes it all worthwhile.
