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Title: Historical Atlas of California
ISBN: 0520252586
Author:
Derek Hayes
Publicate Date: 2007-10-30
Publish: 2007-10-30
List Price: $39.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $24.89
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $19.85
Amazon Merchant Price: $25.63
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1: A "must have" book for serious people
Hayes' "Historical Atlas of California" is a real treasure.
His book spans 500 years of the history of CA.
It is very readable and a "must have" for any student of historical geography. I strongly recommend it. It is well written and very well illustrated. A real find.
Anybody interested in California's past and future would be well advised to at least peruse this "coffee table" sized book.
It has a wealth of information and lots of rare maps.
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2: Cartographical cornucopia
This chronologically depicts California's discovery, development, and divisions. It follows the guesses of the earliest European explorers (I wonder what a native map would look like, but none's represented) and you see the island gradually become a peninsula or archipelago before assuming over the centuries its coastline. Then, the interior begins to take shape, and cities and farms and railroads fill the spaces. A sort of time-lapse ideologically and practically from the past five centuries.
You better understand the gaps: Virginia is shown a few days from California in one early attempt, while the Gold Rush pioneers used routes that were narrowly drawn and could not be deviated from-- around the rest of the West there might be empty spaces, figuratively or cartographically. San Francisco benefits especially throughout its growth, and a 1906 aerial drawing shows dramatically the fire sweeping some--but not all-- of The City. Hayes informs us in his text how the fatalities had been underreported (under 500) when they may have been three or even six thousand. The speculators and profiteers did not want to ruin their chances of rebuilding and selling to new residents. Such chicanery can also be found in the early Spanish who kept their findings off the maps, or kept the maps secret, to avoid tipping off discoveries to the rival British.
Not only rail and auto and industrial, but oil, military, and unusual maps appear. Those in which the patterns of Los Angeles 125 years ago can be found in the train routes, and how these mirror the freeways today, are instructive. I also learned that a 185-mile interurban line once ran from Chico to the Bay Area, to my great surprise. Among other finds: the color-coded charts directing the Japanese relocations during WWII, Jo Mora's Sierra cartoon (but his Hollywood one's not here), and a 1887 Hollywood real estate map from its first booster who, typically, showed many more mountains than even a pre-smoggy day could be glimpsed from Tinseltown-- let alone the beaches!
The text is informative, but I caught an error: Henry Kaiser's steel mill would have not been built at Fontana "eight miles inland" to avoid Japanese attack. Perhaps Hayes meant "eighty"? I do wish some of the maps were larger; the book's affordable and portable enough, but this invariably cuts down the ability even with magnification to discern the kinds of precision that any lover of maps likely has who'd buy this book.
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3: Highly recommended
I was delighted with the book. It is a treasure trove of information provided you use it properly. I use a magnifying glass to view the maps in close detail to get the most out of the book. If you look closely at the maps you are treated to an "evolution" of the state from the time that it was thought to be an island to the present. By inspecting each map very closely you see places that now don't exist, lakes that have disappeared, and roads that have gone from dirt paths to super highways. If you love history as I do, you'll love this book, I also recommend "the Historical Atlas of the United States" by the same author. Same format, same great look at the nation through time.
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4: Historical Atlas of California
This beautiful book contains copies of 476 historic maps dealing with California history from the earliest times to the present. This book is for any historian interested in California history, and any individual interested in maps. These are located in repositories all over the United States, thus we can virtually travel and update our history by reading this wonderful book. I was particularly delighted to find an 1847 rendering of the battle of Los Angeles between the Americans and the Mexicans. Each map is thoroughly cataloged in an appendix along with a fine bibliograhy.
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5: Historical Atlas of California
This is a fantastic book! I gave it to my father for Christmas. He loves it. He is also a historian. Highly reccomended.
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