Imperial San Francisco

Urban Power, Earthly Ruin

by

Paperback, 437 pages

English language

Published Oct. 3, 2006 by University of California Press.

ISBN:
978-0-520-25008-6
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4 stars (2 reviews)

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.

2 editions

reviewed Imperial San Francisco by Gray A. Brechin

Review of 'Imperial San Francisco' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

This book opens with a slightly bizarre conspiracy theory about the role of mining in history, and keeps going with a lot of implied “the rich are trying to keep us down” without much evidence. Not that the folks he’s chronicling are particularly nice folks, but that’s easy enough to prove without inventing theories that are somewhere between conspiracies and Grand Theories of History. Despite this unfortunate tendency, this book has lots of great stories and background about how the San Francisco power brokers of the late 19th century interrelated with the city, the state, and the rest of the country, including some great background on the history of water and mining in the region. Definitely recommended reading for someone trying to get a grasp on the early history of SF, albeit to be taken with a side order of salt.

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4 stars

Subjects

  • Elite (Social sciences) -- California -- San Francisco Bay Area -- History
  • Nature -- Effect of human beings on -- California -- San Francisco Bay Area -- History
  • Nature -- Effect of human beings on -- Pacific Area -- History
  • Human ecology -- California -- San Francisco Bay Area -- History
  • Land use -- California -- San Francisco Bay Area -- History
  • San Francisco Bay Area (Calif.) -- Biography
  • San Francisco (Calif.) -- Biography
  • San Francisco Bay Area (Calif.) -- Environmental conditions
  • Pacific Area -- Environmental conditions