Kevin Starr (born September 3, 1940) is an American historian, best known for his multi-volume series on the history of California, collectively called "Americans and the California Dream."
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Kevin Starr was born in San Francisco, California. Starr received his Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of San Francisco in 1962. From 1962 to 1964 he served in the U.S. Army as a lieutenant in the 68th Armored Brigade in then-West Germany. He then earned an MA degree in 1965 and PhD from Harvard University in 1969 in American Literature.[1] He taught at American Literature until 1973, and then moved to California where he lived in since 1974. From 1974 to 1989 he was professor or visiting lecturer at numerous California universities, including UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Riverside, Santa Clara University, the University of San Francisco, and Stanford University. In 1989 Starr became Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Southern California, and was promoted to University Professor of History in 1998.[2] Starr sometimes teaches at the USC State Capital Center in Sacramento, California.[3]
Starr served as California State Librarian from 1994 to April 1, 2004, when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger named him State Librarian Emeritus.[1] In 2004 he published Coast of Dreams, a cultural history of California since 1990. The volume on the 1950-1963 period won the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for history.[4]
In 2006, Starr was made a member of the College of Fellows of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California. In November 2006 he was awarded a National Humanities Medal.[5] On July 7, 2010, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver announced that Starr would be a 2010 inductee of the California Hall of Fame; the induction ceremony was held on December 14, 2010 at The California Museum.
Composer John Adams was inspired by the "Dream" series of books to write the piece City Noir in 2009.[6]