The Land of Orange Groves and Jails: Upton Sinclair's California

by Upton Sinclair, Lauren Coodley (Editor)

Novelist and muckraker Upton Sinclair will forever be associated with The Jungle, however, Sinclair deserves equal accolades for his entertaining critiques of Southern California's oil industry, movie studios, and urban sprawl--most of which still apply today. The Land of Orange Groves and Jails spans fifty years of Sinclair's funny and fiery writings. Taken together, these plays, novels, articles, and pamphlets show how Sinclair's personal life inspired his political activism.

This quintessential rabble-rouser has found an advocate in Lauren Coodley, a professor of history at Napa Valley College. Beginning with her dissertation, Coodley has spent nearly ten years studying Sinclair's life and writings. She has rethought how we view Upton Sinclair, both as a Californian and as a writer who turned his own life experiences into political pop culture.