With lively, in depth and up-to-date text and more than 550 photographs, Picturing Los Angeles captures the elusive essence of America’s second largest and, in many ways, most influential city. Highlighting the fascinating people, intriguing places and dramatic events of more than two hundred years, Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmakers Jon and Nancy Wilkman tell the little-known story of a colorful and often misunderstood metropolis. 

The City of Angels has been called “a city without a history.”  Nothing could be farther from the truth and the proof is in the pages of Picturing Los Angeles. There is no more entertaining way to discover, or re-discover, the real L.A., a city that is, for better and sometimes worse, the hometown of the American Dream.

"I've been reporting the news in Los Angeles for almost 60 years. Picturing Los Angeles brought back powerful memories of recent times, but it also transported me back more than two hundred years . . . Here are the headlines, newsmakers and everyday Angelenos who gave life to L.A.'s little-known past.  It's quite a story."
Stan Chambers
KTLA Channel 5 News

"Evocative photographs and illuminating text are interwoven into the best gift of all for anyone interested in the story of one of the world's most influential and misunderstood cities. Well researched and beautifully illustrated, Picturing Los Angeles captures our Angeleno -- and American -- dreams, achievements, missed opportunities and emerging multicultural identity."
Carolyn Kozo Cole
Curator of Photographs
Los Angeles Public Library

“In a freeway-fast flow of image and text, two savvy interpreters of Los Angeles evoke the distinctive blend of urbanism, ethnicity, eccentricity, the unexpected, and the traditional that is the Great Gatsby of American cities.”
Kevin Starr
Professor of History
University of Southern California