Pacific Eldorado

PACIFIC ELDORADO PACIFIC ELDORADO A HISTORY OF GREATER CALIFORNIA California s rich and complex history has long been shaped by its relationship with the vast ocean along its western shores. Pacific Eldorado: A History of Greater California presents the first comprehensive text to explore the entire sweep of California s past in relationship to the maritime world of the Pacific Basin. Noted historian Thomas J. Osborne dispels the commonly held notion of pre-Gold Rush California as a remote and isolated backwater. He traces the evolution of America s most populous state from the time of prehistoric Asian seafarers and sixteenth-century Spanish explorers through to its emergence in the modern world as a region whose unmatched resources and global influence have rendered it a veritable super state a Greater California whose history has far exceeded its geographical boundaries. Interspersed throughout the text are Pacific Profiles, brief chronicles of notable figures who have made an impact on the state s history. At once scholarly and accessible, Pacific Eldorado offers a strikingly original interpretation of the origins and evolution of an extraordinary American state.