Defined as much by its mythology as by its geography, California is a place of rich human variety, spectacular natural beauty, historical extremes, and complex political contradictions. Learn more about your home state, its history, and the difficult issues it faces today with the books in this subject guide, which represent just a few of the ones about California available in the library's collection. Visit the catalog at library.thoreau.org to find more, and remember that we will having a discussion in the library about one of the books on this list - Rand Richard's Mud, Blood, and Gold - next Wednesday, July 22, from 12:30pm to 1:30pm.
Kevin Starr. California: A History. (2005)
Author of the sweeping eight volume historical study, California and the American Dream, and former state librarian, Kevin Starr in thirteen chapters chronicles California's history from the arrival of Europeans in the sixteenth century to 2005. Surveying the full sweep of geological, economic, political, cultural, and technological forces that have shaped the state, he emphasizes key themes of diversity, mythmaking, and innovation. It is also an examination of the paradoxical relationship between the state's veneration of nature and its rapacious consumption of it, how California became such a representative American place, and the question "Is California governable?"
John McPhee. Assembling California. (1993)
Rivaling the diversity of its population, the geology of California is a uniquely complex story of shifting geometries in continual motion. Part science, part biography, part travel narrative, McPhee explores the state with geologist Eldridge Moors while explaining the geological dynamics that have pieced together the state and shaped its familiar features for hundreds of millions of years. Illustrating how these forces have directly affected human development, he also discusses the gold rush, vinicultural diversity, and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Brian Fagan. Before California: An Archeologist Looks at Our Earliest Inhabitants. (2003).
Long before there was a state called California, the land it occupies was home to a diverse array of societies and cultures, including some of the highest linguistic diversity every recorded on the planet. Written for a general audience, this book is a survey of the lives of these native peoples from the earliest human settlement over 13,000 years ago to the arrival of Europeans, as based on interpretations of the archaeological record. Acknowledging that many questions remain to be answered, Fagan addresses a wide range of topics, including human travel and migration patterns, the changing availability of different food resources, the effects of alterations in the ecology of the coast and inland regions, and detailed explorations of specific geographic regions.
Peter Asmus. Introduction to Energy in California. (2009)
From the University of California Press' California Natural History Guides series, this book is a comprehensive and accessible reference guide to all aspects of energy in the state, with over a hundred photographs, illustrations, and maps. Beginning with an historical overview of energy development in California, it also examines the pros and cons of all existing energy sources, including alternative and renewable ones, and describes the numerous challenges facing the state today in this sector along with some potential solutions for a more sustainable future. With an afterword by Arthur O' Donnell, executive director of the Center for Resource Solutions.
Linda & Wayne Bonnett. Taber: A Photographic Legacy, 1870-1900. (2004)
This survey features over 200 photographs of California and San Francisco taken by Isaiah West Taber (1830-1912), one of the most famous, talented, and prolific photographers of the state in his day, with a genius for self-promotion needed to thrive in the competitive world of nineteenth century portraiture. Documenting views of a world now lost, it includes images of Chinatown, the mansions of Nob Hill, Sutro Heights, the 1894 Midwinter Fair, Yosemite Valley, and individual portraits of famous Californians. It also presents the story of West himself, from his arrival during the gold rush to the 1906 earthquake when all of his glass negatives were lost.
Rand Richards. Mud, Blood, and Gold: San Francisco in 1849. (2009)
By the author of Historic San Francisco (also in the library collection), this work presents a detailed account of San Francisco in the year when its population exploded as tens of thousands of people from around the world poured through on their way to get rich in the newly discovered gold fields of California. From eyewitness accounts of that tumultuous year, Richards creates a vivid picture of daily life filled with drinking, gambling, prostitution, violence, real estate speculation, government corruption, and boundless ambition. Strained to the breaking point, the town was transformed into a city in ways that echo to today.
