Imperial San Francisco, With a New Preface

Gray Brechin

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9780520933484
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

First published in 1999, this celebrated history of San Francisco traces the exploitation of both local and distant regions by prominent families—the Hearsts, de Youngs, Spreckelses, and others—who gained power through mining, ranching, water and energy, transportation, real estate, weapons, and the mass media. The story uncovered by Gray Brechin is one of greed and ambition on an epic scale. Brechin arrives at a new way of understanding urban history as he traces the connections between environment, economy, and technology and discovers links that led, ultimately, to the creation of the atomic bomb and the nuclear arms race. In a new preface, Brechin considers the vulnerability of cities in the post-9/11 twenty-first century.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Preface to the 2007 Edition
• Preface to the First Edition: The Urban Maelstrom
• Introduction: New Romes for a New World
• PART ONE Foundations of Dominion
• PART TWO The Thought Shapers
• PART THREE Remote Control
• Notes
• A Note on Sources
• Select Bibliography
• Index