This volume of original essays by leading scholars is an innovative, thorough introduction to the history and culture of California.

• Includes 30 essays by leading scholars in the field
• Essays range widely across perspectives, including political, social, economic, and environmental history
• Essays with similar approaches are paired and grouped to work as individual pieces and as companions to each other throughout the text
• Produced in association with the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West

William Deverell is Professor of History at the University of Southern California and Director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West. He is the author of numerous publications including Land of Sunshine: The Environmental History of Metropolitan Los Angeles (with Greg Hise, 2005) and A Companion to Los Angeles (with Greg Hise, 2010).

David Igler is Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine, where he teaches courses in U.S., environmental, and California history. He is the author of The Great Ocean: Pacific Worlds .from Captain Cook to the Gold Rush (2013), and Industrial Cowboys: Miller & Lux and the Transformation of the Far West, 1850-1920 (2001).