Book details

Book description

Osborne's work is the first history text to explore the sweep of California's past in relationship to its connections within the maritime world of the Pacific Basin.

• Presents a provocative and original interpretation of the entire span of California history
• Reveals how the area's Pacific Basin connections have shaped the Golden State's past
• Refutes the widely held notion among historians that California was isolated before the onset of the American period in the mid-1800s
• Represents the first text to draw on anthropologist Jon Erlandson's findings that California's first human inhabitants were likely prehistoric Asian seafarers who navigated the Pacific Rim coastline
• Includes instructor resources in an online companion site

Thomas J. Osborne is Emeritus Professor of History at Santa Ana College, where he received the inaugural Distinguished Faculty Lecturer Award. He earned his Ph. D in history from Claremont Graduate University and is the author and co-author of several scholarly books, articles and reviews, including Paths to the Present: Thoughts on the Contemporary Relevance of America's Past (co-authored with Fred R. Mabbutt) and "Empire Can Wait:" American Opposition to Hawaiian Annexation, 1893-1898 .