Karel Van Gerven says:

Perfect in fact.

My general remark is that the cost of sending the item is very high in relation to the original price of the book. I realise that this could be difficult to change, but this makes that I will only consider an order to Amazon whem I see no otrer way to buy a book othertwise.

Karel
Rating: 4 / 5

Michael G. Woods says:

Gary Brechin’s book, Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin published by University of California Press in 1999, is an enlightening insight into the men who built San Francisco, their motivations, and the costs associated with their efforts. The author derived the book from his dissertation entitled, “Imperial San Francisco: The Environmental Impact of Urban Elites upon the Pacific Basin.” It is a geographical and or environmental history of the world famous city born of the California gold rush. Brechin contends in his thesis that mechanization, the science of metals, militarism and finance all support the mining industry, which was the crux of the city’s existence, in what he refers to as the “Pyramid of Mining”.(19) Brechin “illustrate[s] how the Pyramid of Mining functions in practice, using the example of one city driven by a small cadre of select families who sought imperial hegemony within the Pacific Basin.”(19) Captains of this empire include William Sharon, Irving Scott, Michael de Young, Claus Spreckels, and William Randolph Hearst. The book concludes with a short history of the University of California, Berkeley, often the recipient of the elite’s philanthropic benefits, and the its role in the nuclear arms race. It is through this ingenious history of San Francisco that Brechin weaves the tales of how the wealthiest individuals manipulated the public, denigrated the environment, and even squandered human life in the pursuit of their own interests.

Throughout the work, Brechin attempts to show how the Pyramid of Mining was used to manipulate the public to promote wealthy self-interests. In this assertion, one of the author’s flaws becomes evident. Lack of documented notes discounts a convincing argument. An example occurs when the author writes that James Marshall merely “rediscovered” gold and that the United States knew of California’s mineral wealth long before thereby hastening America’s War with Mexico.(29) Few notes document this interesting contention, and the ones that do seem to be rumor based. It is more likely that the United States under the direction of expansionist James Polk entered the war for fear of losing California to a nation like Britain who had loaned Mexico large sums of money in the nation’s infancy.

On the other hand, Brechin satisfactory shows how the elite controlled the media thereby manipulating the public in an effort to perpetuate their own agenda. The dedication of numerous pages to the city’s newspapers provides for some of the most compelling reading of the book. In chapter four Brechin explains how de Youngs climbed into San Franciscan society by building their news empire on the Chronicle. When the Chronicle took on Claus Spreckels’ inhumane, treatment of Hawaiian sugar workers, Spreckels retaliated by purchasing de Young’s competition the San Francisco Call.(175-180) In addition, media giant and yellow journalism pioneer, William Randolph Hearst is said to have moved into the family business that his father started in 1887. Senator, George Hearst’s purchase of the San Francisco Examiner was “a means of furthering his own political ambitions.”(177)

The city’s struggle for water in order to sustain a larger population is an example of denigrating the environment to forward urban growth. Like the Romans, Brechin contends the city leaders channeled water through the Spring Valley Water Company’s aqueduct. An illustration entitled “The Spring Valley Arcanum” shows the creation of wealth at the expense of nature and people.(87) Yet, the most audacious effort came from persuading the federal government to allow the damning of the Tuolumne River in the Hetch Hetchy Valley of Yosemite National Park.(108)

Not only did the environment suffer at the hands of the city but it was also victim to the expansion of the empire. As the Pyramid of Mining lurched forward, as Brechin notes, it called for the stripping of Lake Tahoe’s forests for the pilings to support the Comstock Mines in Virginia City.(46) When placer mining produced too little of the valuable metals it was replaced with hydraulic mining which “gouged immense wounds into the Sierra foothills. . . .”(39) The exportation of mining techniques like these spread throughout the Pacific Rim and around the world.(54)

Throughout Brechin’s San Franciscan history, not even human life could impede the progress of the wealthy and their empire. One example provided by Brechin was how William Sharon drove William Ralston to financial ruin and suicide. Then Sharon swindled Ralston’s widow out of millions.(89) Another was the gun slinging antics of the de Young brothers and the Spreckels that left prominent men wounded and Michael de Young dead.(174-177)

When mining no longer drove the empire one of its supporting bases did; militarism. Brechin demonstrates how the Irving Scott’s Union Iron Works became the city’s leading industry in the late nineteenth century. The company built warships for the Great White Fleet and facilitated America’s dream of Manifest Destiny often with questionable tactics.(128-141) Furthermore, like today’s shady arms dealers Union Iron Works brokered deals with foreign militaristic states and their enemies as in the case of the Japanese and the Russians.(142-143) It is the author’s assertion that this was done to expand San Francisco’s imperial control over the Pacific Rim.

The most threatening affront to human life from the empire comes at the end of the book as the author discusses the nuclear arms race. Brechin explains how “San Francisco’s Old Money” financed Ernest Lawrence and Julius Oppenheimer’s work at Berkeley to create atomic bombs in order to thwart any potential threat to the empire.(312) In a post World War II world, this technology eventually led to the hydrogen bomb and the potential of worldwide annihilation.

In conclusion, Brechin satisfactory illustrates that the history of San Francisco was a story of greed through the exploitation of people and the environment. The greatest criticism lays in some of the loosely documented notes, which must have been the result of editing since Brechin’s dissertation was well cited.(notes) One omission that perhaps deserves discussion was the impact of the Silicon Valley and its contribution to the empire. Despite these criticisms, Imperial San Francisco offers a story of the city underneath all its gilding. It is a pleasure to read and most of its value lay in its insightful social commentary.
Rating: 5 / 5

jerseymca says:

If you’re looking for a book on the history of San Francisco, this is not it. For the first 65 pages or so (out of 330 before footnotes), San Francisco is barely mentioned. Instead, the author talks about Rome, Washington DC, the Mexican-American war, the Spanish-American war, UC Berkeley, the mining-industrial complex, the military-industrial complex, and other related-but-not-directly-related items. There’s a good chapter on San Francisco newspaper history and politics, and the UC Berkeley history is interesting but not directly relevant. The book’s origin as a PhD thesis kind of shows. Unlike the book jacket, I did not find it to be “potboiler urban history” or “written in a lively, accessible style.” It advances a new way of looking at urban development history – the history of a city’s growth as it (negatively) impacts the surrounding environment. It’s interesting for that, but not if you want a book focused on San Francisco history.
Rating: 3 / 5