| Description |
1 online resource |
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text file rda |
| Access |
Digital content provided by hoopla. |
| Summary |
Rick Nagano is a graduate student in the history department at USC, struggling to make rent on his South Los Angeles apartment near the neighborhood where his family once lived. When he lands a job as a research assistant for the elderly Mrs. W-, the heir to an oil fortune, he sees it at first simply as a source of extra cash. But as he grows closer to the iconoclastic, charming, and feisty Mrs. W-, he gets drawn into a world of privilege and wealth far different from his racially mixed, blue-collar beginnings. Putting aside his half-finished dissertation, Rick sets up office in Mrs. W-'s grand Bel Air mansion and begins to transcribe her journals-which document an old Los Angeles not described in his history books. He also accompanies Mrs. W- to venues frequented by the descendants of the land and oil barons who built the city. One evening, at an event, he meets Fiona Morgan--the elegant scion of an old steel family-who takes an interest in his studies. Irresistibly drawn to Fiona, he agrees to help her with a project of questionable merit in the hopes he'll win her favor. A Student of History explores both the beginnings of Los Angeles and the present-day dynamics of race and class. It offers a window into the usually hidden world of high society, and the influence of historic families on current events. Like Great Expectations and The Great Gatsby, it features, in Rick Nagano, a young man of modest means who is navigating a world where he doesn't belong. |
| System Details |
Mode of access: World Wide Web. |
| Subject |
Graduate students -- Fiction.
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Aristocracy (Social class) -- California -- Fiction.
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Social classes -- California -- Fiction.
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Electronic books.
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Los Angeles (Calif.) -- Fiction.
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| Added Author |
hoopla digital.
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| ISBN |
9781617756986 (electronic bk.) |
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1617756989 (electronic bk.) |
| Music No. |
MWT12314867 |
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