From Acorns to Warehouses: Historical Political Economy of Southern California's Inland Empire

Description

Thomas C. Patterson’s large-scale history of the Inland Empire of Southern California traces the social, political and economic changes in this region from the first Native American settlement 12,000 years ago to the present. Framing his discussion of this region in the general growth trajectory of California’s socio-economic history, he is able to connect landscape, resources, wealth, labor, and inequality using a Marxian framework for many key periods of the region’s history. In moving between large scale historical changes, regional adaptations and resistance to those changes, and a framework that places those responses in theoretical context, Patterson’s work allows the reader to see how inland Southern California developed into the warehouse empire of the 21st century and its prospects for the future. Contents List of Illustrations Preface 1 Living Landscapes 2 The First Nations 3 The Spanish Colonial Economy in Southern California 4 Southern California in the Wake of Mexico’s War of Independence, 1822–1848 5 The American Empire and Southern California, 1836 to early 1870s 6 Land, Railroads, and the Rise of the Orange Empire, 1860–1930 7 A Regional Perspective on the Orange Empire and Its Neighbors, 1875–1945 8 War, Real Estate, and the Rise of the Inland Empire, 1940–1978 9 From Inland Empire to Warehouse Empire, 1980–2014 10 Toward the Historical Political Economy of a Region Epilogue References Index About the Author