Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing, (2001). Hardcover first edition - An account of 100 years in Southern California history from 1884 to 2000 by this former L.A. Times reporter. "On one level, this is a history of the newspaper that transformed Southern California from water-starved municipal wanna-be to world-class metropolis; on another level, it's a four-generation family biography. The most outsized of all the outsized characters is Otis Chandler, born in 1927. His great-grandfather, grandfather, father, and mother had turned the Los Angeles Times into a journalistically awful but highly profitable and influential daily newspaper. Chandler, a motorcycle-riding, surfing, bodybuilding hunk of a man with a serious side, wanted to challenge the New York Times as the nation's preeminent general circulation daily. Although often faltering, he came close to his goal before family fissures led to the dissolution of the parent company during the 1990s... Part business saga, part regional history, part family soap opera, always compellingly readable, McDougal's book seamlessly connects the past and the present." (Steve Weinberg, ALA) Illustrated with photographs. Notes, selected bibliography, index/ xvii, 526 pp. ISBN: 0-738202703.