Man of Tomorrow

Visionary. Iconoclast. Political Survivor. "A powerful and entertaining look"
(Governor Gavin Newsom) at the extraordinary life and political career of
Governor Jerry Brown.


Jerry Brown is no ordinary politician. Like his state, he is eclectic,
brilliant, unpredictable and sometimes weird. And, as with so much that
California invents and exports, Brown's life story reveals a great deal about
this country.

With the exclusive cooperation of Governor Brown himself, Jim Newton has
written the definitive account of Jerry Brown's life. The son of Pat Brown,
who served as governor of California through the 1960s, Jerry would extend and
also radically alter the legacy of his father through his own service in the
governor's mansion. As governor, first in the 1970s and then again, 28 years
later in his remarkable return to power, Jerry Brown would propound an
alternative menu of American values: the restoration of the California economy
while balancing the state budget, leadership in the international campaign to
combat climate change and the aggressive defense of California's immigrants,
no matter by which route they arrived. It was a blend of compassion, far-
sightedness and pragmatism that the nation would be wise to consider.

The story of Jerry Brown's life is in many ways the story of California and
how it became the largest economy in the United States. Man of Tomorrow traces
the blueprint of Jerry Brown's off beat risk-taking: equal parts fiscal
conservatism and social progressivism. Jim Newton also reveals another side of
Jerry Brown, the once-promising presidential candidate whose defeat on the
national stage did nothing to diminish the scale of his political,
intellectual and spiritual ambitions.

To the same degree that California represents the future of America, Jim
Newton's account of Jerry Brown's life offers a new way of understanding how
politics works today and how it could work in the future.