Excerpt from A History of California: The American Period As the title indicates, this volume deals with the American period of California history. It thus aims to complement the work of Dr. Charles E. Chapman, whose History of California: the Spanish Period, has already made its wel come appearance from the press. As the preface to this latter volume states, the general plan of the two books was agreed upon as far back as 1914. Since that date, Dr. Chapman and the writer have been in constant communi cation, but otherwise working independently, with the View to producing between them, an authoritative popular history of California. With the exception of a slight overlapping of the writer's opening chapters with the closing pages of Dr. Chapman's narrative (an overlapping, however, which has involved almost no actual repetition of incident), each book covers a separate field. Yet the keynote of the two volumes is essentially the same, namely, that California history is vastly more significant because of its national and inter national aspects than for any local interest it may possess. From this standpoint, the event of primary importance in the history of California is its transformation from a Mexican province into an American state. To this event, as Dr. Chapman shows, the Spanish period looks forward; from this event, dates the California of today and the greater California of tomorrow. In preparing this volume for the press, the writer has had in mind three objects - to make his book conform to the canons of sound scholarship; to escape a provincial and localized point of View; and to avoid being classed with those who write for nothing so irrelevant as a reader. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.