Author: William Heath Davis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : California
Languages : en
Pages : 674
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Book Description
William Heath Davis (1822-1909) was the son of a Boston ship captain engaged in the Hawaiian trade and a Polynesian mother. After visiting California twice on trading voyages that took him all around South and North America, he settled in Monterey to work with his merchant uncle in 1838. In 1845 he settled permanently in San Francisco, becoming one of the city's leading merchants. His marriage to María de Jesus Estudillo tied him to the Hispanic community in his adopted region. Davis loved the easy life of the Californios, the descendants of the Mexicans who had arrived in Alta California in the late 1770s. He found them the happiest and most contented people he had ever known. Davis managed to meet almost every prominent man and woman who lived in or passed through California. He was one of the founders of New Town (now downtown San Diego). He served on San Francisco's first city council; he built San Francisco's first brick building and cofounded San Leandro.
Author: Larry Rogers
Publisher: Schiffer Military History
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 490
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Book Description
The little known story of the five hundred volunteers from California known as the "California Hundred and Battalion." This is not a narrative or reworded history, the words are from those who were there. Gain new insights into California's involvement in the Civil War.
Author: Diane M. T. North
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700626468
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 512
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Book Description
World War I propelled the United States into the twentieth century and served as a powerful catalyst for the making of modern California. The war expanded the role of the government and enlarged the presence of private citizens’ associations. Never before had so many Californians taken such a dynamic part in community, state, national, and international affairs. These definitive events unfold in California at War as a complex, richly detailed historical narrative. Historian Diane M. T. North not only writes about the transformative battlefield and nursing experiences of ordinary Californians, but also documents how daily life changed for everyone on the home front—factory and farm workers, housewives and children, pacifists and politicians. Even before the United States entered the war, California’s economy flourished because its industrialized agriculture helped feed British troops. The war provided a boost to the faltering Hollywood film industry and increased the military’s presence through the addition of Army and Navy training camps and air fields, ship construction, contracts to local businesses, coastal defenses, and university-sponsored scientific research. In these stories, North traces the roots of California’s global stature. The war united Californians in common humanitarian goals as they supported war-related charities, funded the nation’s war machine, conserved food, and enforced rationing. Most citizens embraced wartime restrictions with patriotic zeal and did not foresee the retreat into suspicion, loyalty oaths, and unwarranted surveillance, all of which set the stage for the beginnings of the modern security state. California at War raises important questions about what happens when a nation goes to war. This book illuminates the legacy of World War I for all Americans.
Author: John Garvey
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 9780738530505
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132
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Book Description
Everything changed on the morning of December 7, 1941, and life in San Francisco was no exception. Flush with excitement and tourism in the wake of the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, the city was stunned at the severity of the Pearl Harbor attack, and quickly settled into organized chaos with its new role as a major deployment center for the remainder of the war. "Frisco" teemed with servicemen and servicewomen during and after the conflict, forever changing the face of this waterfront city. Warships roamed the bay, and fearsome gun embankments appeared on the cliffs facing the sea, preparing to repel an invasion that never happened.
Author: Kevin Starr
Publisher: Modern Library
ISBN: 081297753X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418
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Book Description
“A California classic . . . California, it should be remembered, was very much the wild west, having to wait until 1850 before it could force its way into statehood. so what tamed it? Mr. Starr’s answer is a combination of great men, great ideas and great projects.”—The Economist From the age of exploration to the age of Arnold, the Golden State’s premier historian distills the entire sweep of California’s history into one splendid volume. Kevin Starr covers it all: Spain’s conquest of the native peoples of California in the early sixteenth century and the chain of missions that helped that country exert control over the upper part of the territory; the discovery of gold in January 1848; the incredible wealth of the Big Four railroad tycoons; the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906; the emergence of Hollywood as the world’s entertainment capital and of Silicon Valley as the center of high-tech research and development; the role of labor, both organized and migrant, in key industries from agriculture to aerospace. In a rapid-fire epic of discovery, innovation, catastrophe, and triumph, Starr gathers together everything that is most important, most fascinating, and most revealing about our greatest state. Praise for California “[A] fast-paced and wide-ranging history . . . [Starr] accomplishes the feat with skill, grace and verve.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review “Kevin Starr is one of california’s greatest historians, and California is an invaluable contribution to our state’s record and lore.”—MarIa ShrIver, journalist and former First Lady of California “A breeze to read.”—San Francisco
Author: Sherman L. Fleek
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780806192987
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The great march across the Southwest. The story of that grueling march across wide prairies, mountains, and deserts is central to the battalion's story. It symbolizes the very essence of the Mormon drama as a frontier epic, and proves more than anything else the men's loyalty, stamina, and sacrifice.
Author: Jeff Erzin
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476681031
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 227
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Book Description
Drawing on six years of research, this book covers the military service and postwar lives of notable Confederate veterans who moved into Northern California at the end the Civil War. Biographies of 101 former rebels are provided, from the oldest brother of the Clanton Gang to the son of a President to plantation owners, dirt farmers, criminals and everything in between.
Author: David Vine
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520385683
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 464
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Book Description
2020 L.A. Times Book Prize Finalist, History A provocative examination of how the U.S. military has shaped our entire world, from today’s costly, endless wars to the prominence of violence in everyday American life. The United States has been fighting wars constantly since invading Afghanistan in 2001. This nonstop warfare is far less exceptional than it might seem: the United States has been at war or has invaded other countries almost every year since independence. In The United States of War, David Vine traces this pattern of bloody conflict from Columbus's 1494 arrival in Guantanamo Bay through the 250-year expansion of a global U.S. empire. Drawing on historical and firsthand anthropological research in fourteen countries and territories, The United States of War demonstrates how U.S. leaders across generations have locked the United States in a self-perpetuating system of permanent war by constructing the world’s largest-ever collection of foreign military bases—a global matrix that has made offensive interventionist wars more likely. Beyond exposing the profit-making desires, political interests, racism, and toxic masculinity underlying the country’s relationship to war and empire, The United States of War shows how the long history of U.S. military expansion shapes our daily lives, from today’s multi-trillion–dollar wars to the pervasiveness of violence and militarism in everyday U.S. life. The book concludes by confronting the catastrophic toll of American wars—which have left millions dead, wounded, and displaced—while offering proposals for how we can end the fighting.
Author: Wayne H. Bowen
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 157356723X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 233
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Book Description
In the 19th and 20th centuries, Spain was a key player in the military conflagrations that created modern Europe. From the Napoleonic Wars, through the dress rehearsal for World War II that was the Spanish Civil War, to the grim struggle against terrorism today, the military history of modern Spain has both shaped and reflected larger forces beyond its borders. This volume traces the course of Spanish military history, primarily during the 20th century. Chapter 1 provides the foundation for the role of the Spanish Army at home (the War of Independence [Napoleonic War], the Carlist Wars, and pronunciamientos), abroad (Morocco, 1859-60), and as an instrument for Liberal reforms in Spain. Chapter 2 covers the period following the Spanish-American War as the Army redirected its focus to the Spanish Protectorate in northern Morocco. This chapter covers the Rif Rebellion (1921-27), the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera (1923-30) and concludes with the end of the monarchy and the establishment of the 2nd Republic in 1931. Chapters 3 and 4 present the two armies of the Spanish Civil War, as well as their relationship to the warring factions of Nationalists and Republicans. Chapter 5 looks at the Spanish Army during World War II on the Eastern Front (Russia), in its overseas colonies, as well as in Spain. De-colonialism is covered in chapter 6 as Spain, following the lead of the other European powers, began to shed itself of its African empire. Chapter 8 charts Spain's integration into the Western defense community in the 1950s, its membership in NATO, and its participation in peacekeeping and humanitarian missions in the Balkans and the Middle East. Chapter 9 focuses on Spain's struggle against terrorism, both the domestic Basques of ETA (Fatherland and Liberty) and the newer conflict against al-Qaeda and radical Islamic fundamentalism.
Author: Tom Prezelski
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806153083
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270
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Book Description
More than 16,000 Californians served as soldiers in the Union Army during the Civil War. One California unit, the 1st Battalion of Native Cavalry, consisted largely of Californio Hispanic volunteers from the “Cow Counties” of Southern California and the Central Coast. Out-of-work vaqueros who enlisted after drought decimated the herds they worked, the Native Cavalrymen lent the army their legendary horsemanship and carried lances that evoked both the romance of the Californios and the Spanish military tradition. Californio Lancers, the first detailed history of the 1st Battalion, illuminates their role in the conflict and brings new diversity to Civil War history. Author Tom Prezelski notes that the Californios, less than a generation removed from the U.S.-Mexican War, were ambivalent about serving in the Union Army, but poverty trumped their misgivings. Based on his extensive research in the service records of individual officers and enlisted men, Prezelski describes both the problems and the accomplishments of the 1st Battalion. Despite a desertion rate among enlisted men that exceeded 50 percent for some companies, and despite the feuds among its officers, the Native Cavalry was the face of federal authority in the region, and their presence helped retain the West for the Union during the rebellion. The battalion pursued bandits, fought an Indian insurrection in northern California, garrisoned Confederate-leaning southern California, patrolled desert trails, guarded the border, and attempted to control the Chiricahua Apaches in southern Arizona. Although some ten thousand Spanish-surnamed Americans served during the Civil War, their support of the Union is almost unknown in the popular imagination. Californio Lancers contributes to our understanding of the Civil War in the Far West and how it transformed the Mexican-American community.
