Product Description: In the most comprehensive investigation of the Los Angeles Public Library’s early history and architectural genesis ever undertaken, Kenneth Breisch chronicles the institution’s first six decades, from its founding as a private library association in 1872 through the completion of the iconic Central Library building in 1933...read more

Product Description: McTeague is a dentist of limited intellect from a poor miner's family, who has opened a dentist shop on Polk Street in San Francisco. (His first name is never revealed; other characters in the novel call him simply "Mac.") His best friend, Marcus Schouler, brings his cousin, Trina Sieppe, whom he is courting, to McTeague's parlor for dental work...read more

The Golden Gate Bridge links the urbanity of San Francisco with the wild headlands of Marin County, as if to suggest the paradox of California and America itself-the place that Fitzgerald saw as the last spot commensurate with the human capacity for wonder. The bridge, completed in 1937, also announced to the world America's engineering prowess and full assumption of its destined continental dominance. The Golden Gate is a counterpart to the Statue of Liberty, pronouncing American achievement in an unmistakable American fashion. The nation's very history is expressed in the bridge's art deco style and stark verticality. Kevin Starr's Golden Gate is a brilliant and passionate telling of the history of the bridge, and the rich and peculiar history of the California experience. The Golden Gate is a grand public work, a symbol and a very real bridge, a magnet for both postcard photographs and suicides. In this compact but comprehensive narrative, Starr unfolds the hidden-in-plain-sight meaning of the Golden Gate, putting it in its place among classic works of art.

Product Description: California is at the cutting edge of technological change, demographic transformation, and international engagement. It has the country's largest population, and is its biggest producer of agricultural and manufactured goods, its main exporter and importer, and a leading center for higher education, research, the media, and philanthropy...read more

A definitive, single-volume history of the Golden State ranges from the earliest Native American cultures, through the Spanish and Mexican eras, the Gold Rush, and rise of Hollywood, to the twenty-first century, chronicling the events, places, and personalities that have shaped California. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

A new volume in the author's multivolume study of California focuses on the period from 1990 to 2003, drawing on a variety of personal impressions, news stories, anecdotes, facts, and analyses to examine a period of intense upheaval and turmoil in the Golden State, from the rise and fall of Silicon Valley to the Northridge earthquake to the recall election of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

Product Description: During the 1990s, Los Angeles - like many other cities across America - began demolishing public housing projects that had come to symbolize decades of failed urban policies. But public housing was not always regarded with such disdain...read more

SECTION THREE : MORNING IN AMERICA AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER -- Human rights in the Eighties : seeing through both eyes / Joan Baez -- Hear America singing / Walter Cronkite -- Address to the Commonwealth Club / Ronald Reagan -- Peace in the Middle East / Prince Bandar bin Sultan -- Peace in Central America / Daniel Ortega Saaverdra -- Freedom and tolerance / Desmond Tutu -- People power / Corazon Aquino -- The politics of AIDS / Randy Shilts -- U.S. defense policy : the Gulf War and beyond / Richard B. Cheney -- Writing in a time of war / Maxine Hong Kingston -- U.S.-Soviet relations on the eve of revolution / George Shultz and Don Oberdorfer -- The rights of future generations / Jacques Yves Cousteau -- Children first : building a global agenda / Audrey Hepburn -- The betrayal of American democracy / William Greider -- The vice president speaks / Dan Quayle -- Abating global warming for fun and profic / Amory Lovins -- A special presentation by His Excellency Mikhail Gorbachev / Mikhail Gorbachev -- Fromprisoner to president / Vaclav Havel.SECTION FOUR : AMERICA Y2K AND THE JIHAD -- What you need to know about the UN and foreign policy today / Madeleine Albright -- The United Nations in our daily lives / Kofi Annan -- A stae of the union for foreign policy / William Jefferson Clinton -- Buried alive / Mavis Leno -- Democracy derailed / David Broder -- Campaign finance reform / John McCain and Russ Feingold -- No spin zone / Bill O'Reilly -- Peacemaking in the Middle East / Hanan Mikhail-Ashrawi -- Death of the West / Patrick J. Buchanan --Crashing the party / Ralph Nader -- The media and the war on terrorism / Lowell Bergman -- Confronting terrorism : smart bombs or smart concepts? / Benjamin Barber.

A new volume in the author's multivolume study of California focuses on the period from 1990 to 2003, drawing on a variety of personal impressions, news stories, anecdotes, facts, and analyses to examine a period of intense upheaval and turmoil in the Golden State, from the rise and fall of Silicon Valley to the Northridge earthquake to the recall election of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The work of nearly every photographer of consequence since the nineteenth century is captured in this collection of photographs of California farmworkers, raising moral questions about the exploitation and colonization of an entire class of people.

California during the gold rush offered many strange sights, but few were as startling as the arrival of two women activists in Santa Cruz in 1850. When Eliza Farnham and Georgiana Bruce Kirby showed up to work on the farm dressed in bloomers and boots, the townsfolk were amazed. It was shocking enough that these two East Coast women were suffragettes; when they learned that Eliza was not advocating women’s equality, but rather lecturing on women’s superiority, it seemed the entire state was abuzz. JoAnn Levy, the well-known historian and author of _They Saw the Elephant: Women in the California Gold Rush_, has pieced together for the first time the grand story of two of American history’s forgotten treasures: Eliza Farnham and Georgiana Bruce Kirby. Together they made national headlines with their writings and their beliefs, be they abolitionism, women’s suffrage, Spiritualism, or phrenology. Both were extraordinarily gifted authors; known nationwide in their time, they have since fallen into obscurity. Levy mined extensively their writings, and found gold: Eliza—herself the author of five books—was the first woman to write a book about California, and the letters written by her and Georgiana are full of intelligence and humor. More than just a history of women in the American frontier, _Unsettling the West_ is the story of a profound friendship. The courage, passion, and wit exhibited by Eliza and Georgiana are surpassed only by their love and respect for one another. These women were at the vanguard of the major social and political movements of their time; they invented identities for themselves that the world had never seen before. They were both oddities and inspirations. In this energetic new book we find ourselves introduced to two characters whose courageous examples we need today more than ever. (view table of contents)

Product Description: Over 100 vivid color images by architectural photographer Robert Berger record the spectacular, sumptuous, and often inspirational interiors of forty of Los Angeles' most historic religious structures. A melting pot of immigrants from the world over, LA reflects in its religious buildings the diversity of its ethnic groups...read more

Product Description: With visual and narrative portraits of headline-grabbing criminal cases, this volume charts the first 150 years of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, from its beginnings as a one-man operation to its modern-day emergence as the world's largest local prosecutorial agency...read more

(view table of contents)

Product Description: Perhaps never in the time-honored American tradition of frontiering did "civilization" appear to sink so low as in gold rush California. A mercurial economy swung from boom to bust, and back again, rendering everyone's fortunes ephemeral...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: The story of California is the story of water, and no book tells it better than this opulent, exuberant, thoughtful collection of photographs and text. With full-color photos throughout, Water and the Shaping of California presents the natural history of water in California, and explores the forces of nature--flood and drought--and society--gold, grain and growth--that led to the water projects that created the California we know today and the conflict over competing uses...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: The story of California is the story of water, and no book tells it better than this opulent, exuberant, thoughtful collection of photographs and text. With full-color photos throughout, Water and the Shaping of California presents the natural history of water in California, and explores the forces of nature--flood and drought--and society--gold, grain and growth--that led to the water projects that created the California we know today and the conflict over competing uses...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: The book is a systematic compilation of places within California that have been of importance to the Chinese. Dividing the state into eight regions, the author provides a county-by-county history and geography of the sites that date from the mid 1800s to the present...read more

Product Description: Circles of Influence looks at the transition from Impressionist-inspired landscape painting to Modernism in Southern California art. The book features essays on both the city of Los Angeles and the styles of art prevalent in the area from 1900 to 1930...read more