In the early 20th century, there was no better example of a classic American downtown than Los Angeles. Since World War II, Los Angeles's Historic Core has been "passively preserved," with most of its historic buildings left intact. Recent renovations of the area for residential use and the construction of Disney Hall and the Staples Center are shining a new spotlight on its many pre-1930s Beaux Arts, Art Deco, and Spanish Baroque buildings.

"A colorful, accurate, fast romp through some of the remaining mysteries of what was once the American Frontier." — The Salem Statesman JournalForeword by New York Times –bestselling author John Jakes"All of history is mystery," Dale L. Walker says, and he proves his point in this lively, humorous—and rational—approach to the West's greatest puzzles. Did Davy Crockett, fo...

The first biography of the little-known real-life Tom Sawyer (a friend of Mark Twain during his brief tenure as a California newspaper reporter), told through a harrowing account of Sawyer's involvement in the hunt for a serial arsonist who terrorized mid-nineteenth century San Francisco.When 28-year-old San Francisco Daily Morning Call reporter Mark Twain met Tom Sawyer at a local bathhouse in 1863, he was seeking a subject for his first novel. As Twain s...

The "meticulous" (The New Yorker) and "ground-breaking" (The Los Angeles Times) story of a cotton magnate whose voracious appetite for land drove him to create the first big agricultural empire of the Central Valley of California, and shaped the landscape for decades to come.J. G. Boswell was the biggest farmer in America. He built a secret empire while thumbing his nose at nature, politicians, labor unions, and every journalist who ever tried to ...

Here, from one of today’s leading authorities on film history, is the story, told brilliantly and for the first time, of the pioneering movie makers who as early as 1905 traveled beyond the studio stages to make feature films on location—and in so doing recorded the real history and real life of their time. The War, the West, and the Wilderness is the result of more than a decade of passionate research by Kevin Brownlow, whose last book, The Parade’s Gone By… (hailed by C...

"F ocuses on the lives of several prostitutes who worked in Death Valley area boomtowns between the 1870s and the early 1900s . . . Colorful and intriguing" ( Pahrump Valley Times).From the 1870s to the turn of the century, while countless men gambled their fortunes in Death Valley's mines, many bold women capitalized on the boom-and-bust lifestyle and established saloons and brothels. These lively ladies were clever entr...

"I have counted, in the last ten miles three hundred sixty-two wagons, which in the States cost about $120 each. The cause of so many wagons being abandoned, is to endeavor to save the animals and reach the end of the journey as soon as possible by packing through; the loss of personal goods is a matter of small importance comparatively."Between 1846 and 1869 more than 400,000 settlers took the perilous journey across the wide and wild spaces of the Western United ...

In the late eighteenth century, Hawai'i’s ruling elite employed sophisticated methods for resisting foreign intrusion. By the mid-nineteenth century, however, American missionaries had gained a foothold in the islands. Jennifer Thigpen explains this important shift by focusing on two groups of women: missionary wives and high-ranking Hawaiian women. Examining the enduring and personal exchange between these groups, Thigpen argues that women’s relationships became vital to building and main...

In less than a century, the American West has transformed from a predominantly rural region to one where most people live in metropolitan centers. Cities and Nature in the American West offers provocative analyses of this transformation. Each essay explores the intersection of environmental, urban, and western history, providing a deeper understanding of the com- plex processes by which the urban West has shaped and been shaped by its sustaining environment. The book also consider...

A sequel to the classic Incredible Hawaii This illustrated text is packed with information about the Hawaiian Islands and is a delight for young readers and teacher alike.This Hawaiian culture and history book is the fruit of collaboration between author anthropologist Terence Barrow and artist-illustration Ray Lanterman. It is a worthy successor to their Incredible Hawaii published by the Charles E. Tuttle Company in 1974. The first book was rece...

Sagebrush and neon, shepherds and gangsters, a crossroads and a refuge, Nevada is a state that "didn't deserve to be."Through a turbulent history, Nevada has searched for an identity to call its own. How well it has succeeded is the subject of Robert Laxalt's evocative portrait of the state and its people.

2018 Sally and Ken Owens Award from the Western History AssociationTwelve companies of American missionaries were sent to the Hawaiian Islands between 1819 and 1848 with the goal of spreading American Christianity and New England values. By the 1850s American missionary families in the islands had birthed more than 250 white children, considered Hawaiian subjects by the indigenous monarchy and U.S. citizens by missionary parents. In Hawaiian by Birth Joy Schulz explores th...