Miriam Pawel is an author, journalist, and independent historian. Her recent work has sought to explain her adopted home state of California, drawing on history to inform the present and illuminate the future. Her most recent book, The Browns of California: The Family Dynasty that Transformed a State and Shaped a Nation (Bloomsbury, 2018) traces the history of California through four generations of the family of Governors Pat and Jerry Brown. She is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times.