Description
Price: $70.00 - $47.52
(as of Mar 16, 2025 01:37:02 UTC – Details)
From the first known photograph taken in Los Angeles to its most recent sweeping vistas, this photographic tribute to the City of Angels provides a fascinating journey through the city’s cultural, political, industrial, and sociological history. It traces the city’s development from the 1880s real estate boom, through the early days of Hollywood and the urban sprawl of the late 20th century, right up to the present day. With over 500 images, L.A. is shown emerging from a desert wasteland to become a vast palm-studded urban metropolis.
Events that made world news―including two Olympics, Bobby Kennedy’s assassination, and the Rodney King riots―reveal a city of many dimensions. The entertainment capital of the world, Hollywood, and its celebrities are showcased along with many other notable residents, personalities, architects, artists, and musicians. The city’s pop cultural movements, its music, surfing, health food fads, gangs, and hot rods are included, as are its notorious crimes and criminals. This book depicts Los Angeles in all its glory and grit, via hundreds of freshly discovered images including those of Julius Shulman, Garry Winogrand, William Claxton and many other superb photographers, culled from major historical archives, museums, private collectors, and universities. These are given context and resonance through essays by renowned California historian Kevin Starr and Los Angeles literature expert David L. Ulin.
From the Publisher
La La Land
Explore the City of Angels from beaches to barrios, from tiny frontier town to glittering urban metropolis and entertainment capital of the world. This suitably sun-drenched tribute to Los Angeles packs page after page with stunning photographs to capture the life and reinventions of L.A. from the 1880s to the present day.
From the first known photograph taken in Los Angeles to its most recent sweeping vistas, this photographic tribute to the City of Angels provides a fascinating journey through the city’s cultural, political, industrial, and sociological history.
It traces the city’s development from the 1880s real estate boom, through the early days of Hollywood and the urban sprawl of the late 20th century, right up to the present day.
With over 500 images, L.A. is shown emerging from a desert wasteland to become a vast palm-studded urban metropolis.
Events that made world news—including two Olympics, Bobby Kennedy’s assassination, and the Rodney King riots—reveal a city of many dimensions.
The entertainment capital of the world, Hollywood, and its celebrities are showcased along with many other notable residents, personalities, architects, artists, and musicians.
The city’s pop cultural movements, its music, surfing, health food fads, gangs, and hot rods are included, as are its notorious crimes and criminals.
This book depicts Los Angeles in all its glory and grit, via hundreds of freshly discovered images including those of Julius Shulman, Garry Winogrand, William Claxton and many other superb photographers, culled from major historical archives, museums, private collectors, and universities. These are given context and resonance through essays by renowned California historian Kevin Starr and Los Angeles literature expert David L. Ulin.
Publisher : Taschen America (October 27, 2009)
Language : Multilingual
Hardcover : 572 pages
ISBN-10 : 3836502917
ISBN-13 : 978-3836502917
Item Weight : 8.25 pounds
Dimensions : 9.84 x 1.85 x 13.39 inches
Customers say
Customers find the book has great pictures of the past. They find it interesting to read and look at, keeping them captivated for hours on end. The writing quality is superb, with detailed evaluations of the city of Los Angeles. It’s described as a journey through the city showing famous spots and history. Customers describe it as a great gift for LA residents.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Ari Wilhelm –
Amazing photos
This is an incredible book! It’s like a journey through the city of Los Angeles, showing all its amazing places and history.The pictures in the book are stunning, really capturing the beauty and vibe of L.A. It’s not just a book; it’s like an adventure across the city, showing famous spots and hidden gems. It’s perfect for anyone who loves L.A. or wants to learn more about this vibrant city.
Steven Basten –
Beautiful coffee table book
Taschen publishes great books. This is a high quality coffee table book with clear images and a strong binding. Love it.
Nika Bielska –
My friend loved this as a present
Lovely and very large
Eugenie L. Birch –
A Wondrous Portrait of a Hard-to-Navigate City
To a life-long New Yorker, Los Angeles is a foreign country, filled with vivid impressions — warm all the time, unseemly pink and tourqouise neon pillars at the airport, lush vegetation, endless freeways, glittering Disney Center, lovely bungalow neighborhoods, downtown that stretches to Santa Monica, Hollywood emblazoned on the hill, Century City sprouting from somewhere, the Getty Center gleaming from its perch, Wilshire Boulevard marching through time and linking it all together, mammouth city hall, nostalgic Union Station, pinata and flower markets, new rapid transit, cars, cars, cars…. Of course, we all have mental images of the place, products of the media — cops, movie stars, immigrants, water wars — that shape a superficial understanding of LA. But in many ways it’s a hard-to-navigate place — I am not talking about the famed transportation routes, but about its culture and history. For the discerning visitor, there are visual hints of the past, wonderful surprises in the canyons and a shadow of a long-gone community here and there, but its full imprint is gone. At least it was gone until Los Angeles, Portrait of a City appeared this fall.Here, the city unfurls in word (Kevin Starr is simply brilliant) and in image (Jim Heimann’s selections, extraordinary). We can see who made the city what it is today. We can sense the hopes, drive and ambition of its inhabitants over time and view its developing and ever-changing landscape. This book is a masterpiece.It makes the city no longer hard-to-navigate, no longer a foreign country but a beloved American icon.
wellson –
Great book both physically and for content! Perfect gift for an Angeleno!
Quality binding. Hard back covered w/ cloth (not cheap plastic) under dust jacket. Hefty as heck. Size (which is hard to imagine even if you get out a tape measure) is *large* – art book size (smaller than baby elephant but *big*). Well printed. Many iconic and historic photos. Perfect gift for an Angeleno. I am very pleased with it – worth every cent!
Lena M. –
Love.love.love this book
As a native Angeleno I appreciate the historical references in this book. Iâm all about historical Los Angeles. They did a wonderful rendition. I bought the mini trying to be cheap and it turned out to be a wallet size version. I went ahead and paid the $60 plus bucks for my table version. Outstanding. What a great investment.
Brian McCabe –
Fellow Angelenos: Must Own!
This coffee table book is so much more than a coffee table book. It is a comprehensive and broad-spectrum visual and written evaluation of the city of Los Angeles and surrounding cities. Wonderful pictures, great information, a real pleasure to peruse and a learning experience as well. I have purchased three for family members and have asked for one for my birthday coming up soon.
Roch –
Will take you back to another era.
Such a great book! Interesting look back in time.
David Lord –
After living in Los Angeles for over 30 years I thought I knew pretty much about the city. This book presents an excitement to the reader to learn more about the city. The collection of photographs and commentaries have been researched thoroughly. They Are presented in a chronological manner depicting the historic growth and expansion from historic archives and more. I was surprised at the extensive collection of maps and photographs in the book, some I have seen before but this is a great collection and to my mind is one of the best to date and properly represents the story of Los Angeles.Great visuals, an excellent book for anyone who want to know about my city or wants to look through the eyes of the photographer and see the city grow.Would recommend this to anyone.
chico marques –
Adorei o livro. Toda a série Portrait Of A City da Taschen é excelente
BieberBruder –
Richtiges “Schwergewicht” unter den Bildbänden. Viele Infos & tolle, ausdrucksstarke, Bilder.Lieb’s !
Antonella –
Un libro di grande impatto con fotografie molto belle che raccontano la storia della città .
Cliente Amazon –
O livro é grande, capa dura. Vale até como decoração. Conta a história da cidade de Los Angeles. Muito interessante.