Author: James Tejani
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324093560
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 315
Book Description
"[An] enthralling debut…a beguiling history of Southern California, early industrial development, and U.S. empire." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) A deeply researched narrative of the creation of the Port of Los Angeles, a central event in America’s territorial expansion and rise as a global economic power. The Port of Los Angeles is all around us. Objects we use on a daily basis pass through it: furniture, apparel, electronics, automobiles, and much more. The busiest container port in the Western hemisphere, it claims one-sixth of all US ocean shipping. Yet despite its centrality to our world, the port and the story of its making have been neglected in histories of the United States. In A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth, historian James Tejani corrects that significant omission, charting the port’s rise out of the mud and salt marsh of San Pedro estuary—and showing how the story of the port is the story of modern, globalized America itself. By the mid-nineteenth century, Americans had identified the West Coast as the republic’s destiny, a gateway to the riches of the Pacific. In a narrative spanning decades and stretching to Washington, DC, the Pacific Northwest, Civil War Richmond, Southwest deserts, and even overseas to Europe, Hawaii, and Asia, Tejani demonstrates how San Pedro came to be seen as all-important to the nation’s future. It was not virgin land, but dominated by powerful Mexican estates that would not be dislodged easily. Yet American scientists, including the great surveyor George Davidson, imperialist politicians such as Jefferson Davis and William Gwin, and hopeful land speculators, among them the future Union Army general Edward Ord, would wrest control of the estuary, and set the scene for the violence, inequality, and engineering marvels to come. San Pedro was no place for a harbor, Tejani reveals. The port was carved in defiance of nature, using new engineering techniques and massive mechanical dredgers. Business titans such as Collis Huntington and Edward H. Harriman brought their money and corporate influence to the task. But they were outmatched by government reformers, laying the foundations for the port, for the modern city of Los Angeles, and for our globalized world. Interweaving the natural history of San Pedro into this all-too-human history, Tejani vividly describes how a wild coast was made into the engine of American power. A story of imperial dreams and personal ambition, A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth is necessary reading for anyone who seeks to understand what the United States was, what it is now, and what it will be.
A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth: The Making of the Port of Los Angeles and America
Author: James Tejani
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324093560
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 315
Book Description
"[An] enthralling debut…a beguiling history of Southern California, early industrial development, and U.S. empire." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) A deeply researched narrative of the creation of the Port of Los Angeles, a central event in America’s territorial expansion and rise as a global economic power. The Port of Los Angeles is all around us. Objects we use on a daily basis pass through it: furniture, apparel, electronics, automobiles, and much more. The busiest container port in the Western hemisphere, it claims one-sixth of all US ocean shipping. Yet despite its centrality to our world, the port and the story of its making have been neglected in histories of the United States. In A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth, historian James Tejani corrects that significant omission, charting the port’s rise out of the mud and salt marsh of San Pedro estuary—and showing how the story of the port is the story of modern, globalized America itself. By the mid-nineteenth century, Americans had identified the West Coast as the republic’s destiny, a gateway to the riches of the Pacific. In a narrative spanning decades and stretching to Washington, DC, the Pacific Northwest, Civil War Richmond, Southwest deserts, and even overseas to Europe, Hawaii, and Asia, Tejani demonstrates how San Pedro came to be seen as all-important to the nation’s future. It was not virgin land, but dominated by powerful Mexican estates that would not be dislodged easily. Yet American scientists, including the great surveyor George Davidson, imperialist politicians such as Jefferson Davis and William Gwin, and hopeful land speculators, among them the future Union Army general Edward Ord, would wrest control of the estuary, and set the scene for the violence, inequality, and engineering marvels to come. San Pedro was no place for a harbor, Tejani reveals. The port was carved in defiance of nature, using new engineering techniques and massive mechanical dredgers. Business titans such as Collis Huntington and Edward H. Harriman brought their money and corporate influence to the task. But they were outmatched by government reformers, laying the foundations for the port, for the modern city of Los Angeles, and for our globalized world. Interweaving the natural history of San Pedro into this all-too-human history, Tejani vividly describes how a wild coast was made into the engine of American power. A story of imperial dreams and personal ambition, A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth is necessary reading for anyone who seeks to understand what the United States was, what it is now, and what it will be.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324093560
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 315
Book Description
"[An] enthralling debut…a beguiling history of Southern California, early industrial development, and U.S. empire." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) A deeply researched narrative of the creation of the Port of Los Angeles, a central event in America’s territorial expansion and rise as a global economic power. The Port of Los Angeles is all around us. Objects we use on a daily basis pass through it: furniture, apparel, electronics, automobiles, and much more. The busiest container port in the Western hemisphere, it claims one-sixth of all US ocean shipping. Yet despite its centrality to our world, the port and the story of its making have been neglected in histories of the United States. In A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth, historian James Tejani corrects that significant omission, charting the port’s rise out of the mud and salt marsh of San Pedro estuary—and showing how the story of the port is the story of modern, globalized America itself. By the mid-nineteenth century, Americans had identified the West Coast as the republic’s destiny, a gateway to the riches of the Pacific. In a narrative spanning decades and stretching to Washington, DC, the Pacific Northwest, Civil War Richmond, Southwest deserts, and even overseas to Europe, Hawaii, and Asia, Tejani demonstrates how San Pedro came to be seen as all-important to the nation’s future. It was not virgin land, but dominated by powerful Mexican estates that would not be dislodged easily. Yet American scientists, including the great surveyor George Davidson, imperialist politicians such as Jefferson Davis and William Gwin, and hopeful land speculators, among them the future Union Army general Edward Ord, would wrest control of the estuary, and set the scene for the violence, inequality, and engineering marvels to come. San Pedro was no place for a harbor, Tejani reveals. The port was carved in defiance of nature, using new engineering techniques and massive mechanical dredgers. Business titans such as Collis Huntington and Edward H. Harriman brought their money and corporate influence to the task. But they were outmatched by government reformers, laying the foundations for the port, for the modern city of Los Angeles, and for our globalized world. Interweaving the natural history of San Pedro into this all-too-human history, Tejani vividly describes how a wild coast was made into the engine of American power. A story of imperial dreams and personal ambition, A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth is necessary reading for anyone who seeks to understand what the United States was, what it is now, and what it will be.
Metropolis in the Making
Author: Tom Sitton
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520226275
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388
Book Description
"Informed by the rich new literature on contemporary Los Angeles, Metropolis in the Making takes giant strides in illuminating the history of the present. Looking back to the future, this rich collection of historical essays fixes on the key formative moments of America's first decentralized industrial metropolis. Not only would Carey McWilliams be pleased, but so too will be every contemporary urbanist."—Edward W. Soja, author of Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions and co-editor of The City: Los Angeles and Urban Theory at the End of the Twentieth Century
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520226275
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388
Book Description
"Informed by the rich new literature on contemporary Los Angeles, Metropolis in the Making takes giant strides in illuminating the history of the present. Looking back to the future, this rich collection of historical essays fixes on the key formative moments of America's first decentralized industrial metropolis. Not only would Carey McWilliams be pleased, but so too will be every contemporary urbanist."—Edward W. Soja, author of Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions and co-editor of The City: Los Angeles and Urban Theory at the End of the Twentieth Century
Hollywood to Honolulu
Author: Gordon Ghareeb
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
Circa 1492
Author: Jean Michel Massing
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300051670
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 684
Book Description
Surveys the art of the Age of Exploration in Europe, the Far East, and the Americas
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300051670
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 684
Book Description
Surveys the art of the Age of Exploration in Europe, the Far East, and the Americas
Destination Topolobampo
Author: John Leeds Kerr
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
"This is the story of the Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railway which was organized to build a line of railway from Kansas City to Topolobampo, Mexico on the Gulf of California. The Company's two principal subsidiaries were the Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railway Company of Texas and the Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railway of Mexico. The railway in Mexico comprises the Chihuahua & Pacific, sections of the Orient of Mexico, and the former Mexico Northwestern. The project will be referred to in some instances by its nickames "The Orient" or the "Orient Route."--Introductory note, page 4.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
"This is the story of the Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railway which was organized to build a line of railway from Kansas City to Topolobampo, Mexico on the Gulf of California. The Company's two principal subsidiaries were the Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railway Company of Texas and the Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railway of Mexico. The railway in Mexico comprises the Chihuahua & Pacific, sections of the Orient of Mexico, and the former Mexico Northwestern. The project will be referred to in some instances by its nickames "The Orient" or the "Orient Route."--Introductory note, page 4.
Popular Science
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 116
Book Description
Popular Science gives our readers the information and tools to improve their technology and their world. The core belief that Popular Science and our readers share: The future is going to be better, and science and technology are the driving forces that will help make it better.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 116
Book Description
Popular Science gives our readers the information and tools to improve their technology and their world. The core belief that Popular Science and our readers share: The future is going to be better, and science and technology are the driving forces that will help make it better.
Rivers of Empire
Author: Donald Worster
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780195078060
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 624
Book Description
The American West, blessed with an abundance of earth and sky but cursed with a scarcity of life's most fundamental need, has long dreamed of harnessing all its rivers to produce unlimited wealth and power. In Rivers of Empire, award-winning historian Donald Worster tells the story of this dream and its outcome. He shows how, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Mormons were the first attempting to make that dream a reality, damming and diverting rivers to irrigate their land. He follows this intriguing history through the 1930s, when the federal government built hundreds of dams on every major western river, thereby laying the foundation for the cities and farms, money and power of today's West. Yet while these cities have become paradigms of modern American urban centers, and the farms successful high-tech enterprises, Worster reminds us that the costs have been extremely high. Along with the wealth has come massive ecological damage, a redistribution of power to bureaucratic and economic elites, and a class conflict still on the upswing. As a result, the future of this "hydraulic West" is increasingly uncertain, as water continues to be a scarce resource, inadequate to the demand, and declining in quality.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780195078060
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 624
Book Description
The American West, blessed with an abundance of earth and sky but cursed with a scarcity of life's most fundamental need, has long dreamed of harnessing all its rivers to produce unlimited wealth and power. In Rivers of Empire, award-winning historian Donald Worster tells the story of this dream and its outcome. He shows how, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Mormons were the first attempting to make that dream a reality, damming and diverting rivers to irrigate their land. He follows this intriguing history through the 1930s, when the federal government built hundreds of dams on every major western river, thereby laying the foundation for the cities and farms, money and power of today's West. Yet while these cities have become paradigms of modern American urban centers, and the farms successful high-tech enterprises, Worster reminds us that the costs have been extremely high. Along with the wealth has come massive ecological damage, a redistribution of power to bureaucratic and economic elites, and a class conflict still on the upswing. As a result, the future of this "hydraulic West" is increasingly uncertain, as water continues to be a scarce resource, inadequate to the demand, and declining in quality.
The Great Ocean
Author: David Igler
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199914958
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
A groundbreaking and lyrically written work that explores the world of the Pacific Ocean.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199914958
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
A groundbreaking and lyrically written work that explores the world of the Pacific Ocean.
Landscapes of Desire
Author: William Alexander McClung
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520234650
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 298
Book Description
"An imaginative and provocative interpretation of the meaning of Los Angeles, carefully thought out and beautifully written."—Robert Winter, editor of Toward a Simpler Way of Life: The Arts and Crafts Architects of California "McClung's sharp eye, and his ability to be both critic and analyst, combine to make this a book of real timeliness. It is unusual, and it is smart."—William Deverell, author of Railroad Crossing: Californians and the Railroad, 1850-1910
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520234650
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 298
Book Description
"An imaginative and provocative interpretation of the meaning of Los Angeles, carefully thought out and beautifully written."—Robert Winter, editor of Toward a Simpler Way of Life: The Arts and Crafts Architects of California "McClung's sharp eye, and his ability to be both critic and analyst, combine to make this a book of real timeliness. It is unusual, and it is smart."—William Deverell, author of Railroad Crossing: Californians and the Railroad, 1850-1910
Beyond Chinatown
Author: Steven P. Erie
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804751407
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 388
Book Description
Examines the history of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, from its obscure 1920s-era origins, through the Colorado River Aqueduct and State Water Projects, to today's daunting mission of drought management, water quality, environmental stewardship, and post-9/11 supply security. Simultaneous.
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804751407
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 388
Book Description
Examines the history of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, from its obscure 1920s-era origins, through the Colorado River Aqueduct and State Water Projects, to today's daunting mission of drought management, water quality, environmental stewardship, and post-9/11 supply security. Simultaneous.