John Mack Faragher

An accessible, narrative history of California from before the arrival of the first Europeans in the 16th century right through to 2020 and the Covid crisis. Faragher's intention throughout seems to be to bring out the story of how California became the astonishingly diverse place it now is, without losing sight of the many ways in which, during those centuries, people in positions of strength have abused their power to exploit those weaker than themselves, or to take short term (and ultimately catastrophic) advantage of the region's 'natural bounty', which of course masks a rather fragile ecosystem.

In short, humans have behaved as badly in California as in most other parts of the world, but here it is all compressed into a relatively short time-frame and rather isolated from the outside world, so the effect is often much more dramatic, when we read for example about the way in which Franciscan misisonaries exploited Native Californians as (in effect, if not name) slave workers, and later American miners and settlers pushed them off their land; or nineteenth century white trade unionists campaigned against civil rights for Asian workers, or agribusiness used the police and national guard to defeat striking workers, or .... right through to Rodney King — and most of the time they got away with it in the courts and legislature. You get the picture, it wasn't pretty.

Of course, we get the positive stuff too, and I got to fill in a lot of gaps in my knowledge of how it all fitted together, especially the bit before 1846, which I've never really seen explained properly before. Faragher takes a lot of trouble to make the book accessible to non-professional readers (in fact, he tells us that he got his grandchildren to road-test it from the point of view of young readers). But this means that he doesn't use technical terms without explaining them first, not that he dumbs anything down.

There are no footnotes and a few maps, but otherwise the only illustrations are charming line-drawings (by Weshoyot Alvitre) at the head of each chapter, which gives it all a bit of the feel of a pre-war children's book.… (altro)

A thorough history of California.

In a series of short and easily digestible chapters the author describes the history of California from what we know of the Indigenous people before European contact to the modern day.

Many histories of California tend to gloss over its history before 1846; this work does not. The author goes into considerable detail regarding the Indigenous people, the days of the Spanish missions and Spanish rule, and the twenty-five year period of Mexican rule. The author does not spare detail as he covers California's history as part of the United States, covering the socio-political and cultural events and milestones of each decade since the 1840s.

The author interweaves the history of his own ancestors into the story of the development of California, and never forgets the existence and influence of the Indigenous people on the land. A very insightful and judicious exploration into California's heritage.

**--galley received as part of early review program… (altro)