Mark Baldassare is a Senior Fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California in San Francisco where he holds the Arjay and Frances Miller Chair in Public Policy. He is author of When Government Fails: The Orange County Bankruptcy (California, 1998) and Trouble in Paradise: The Suburban Transformation in America (1986), among other books.

"There is a compelting freshness about the study, in part because the data are spanking new." - Christopher Parkes, Financial Times "This book raises provocative questions regarding the relationship among social change, elections, and policymaking, and the uniqueness of the California survey data contribute to a better understanding of the politics of change." - Greg Andranovich, American Political Science Review "What do you call four disparate states populated by mutually suspicious ethnic communities united by a common distrust of government? The Balkans? No. California. In this sharp and engaging book, Baldassare sets out what needs to be done for California to make it in the 21st Century." - Bill Schneider, Senior Political Analyst, CNN "In so many ways, the nation state of California today - with all its promise and all its problems - is the United States of Tomorrow. To understand the nation's future, we must first look to this Golden State. In his understanding and knowledge of California and its people, Mark Baldassare is second to none. With scholarship and wisdom, in California in the New Millennium: The Changing Social and Political Landscape Mark Baldassare permits us to 'look around the corner' to the California and the United States of the 21st Century." - Mark Shields, Syndicated Columnist