Borough, Si! Secession, No!: Or, It’s Time to Start Thinking about a Borough System for Los Angeles

Kevin Starr

Dr. Kevin Starr, the seventh State Librarian of California since the turn of the century, was born in San Francisco in 1940. After graduation from the University of San Francisco in 1962, Starr served two years as a lieutenant in a tank battalion in Germany. Upon release from the service, Starr entered Harvard University where he took his MA degree in 1965 and his PhD in 1969 in American Literature. He also holds the Master of Library Science degree from UC Berkeley and has done post-doctoral work at the Graduate Theological Union. Starr has served as Allston Burr Senior Tutor in Eliot House at Harvard, executive assistant to the Mayor of San Francisco, the City Librarian of San Francisco, a daily columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, and a contributing editor to the Opinion section of the Los Angeles Times. He currently holds the rank of University Professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. The author of numerous newspaper and magazine articles, Starr has written nine books, six of which are part of his American and the California Dream series. His writing has won him a Guggenheim Fellowship, membership in the Society of American Historians, and the Gold Medal of the Commonwealth Club of California.