In comparative tastings, wines from California's Central Coast rival those from such renowned regions as Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Napa, yet they also offer superb value. This is the first comprehensive guide to one of the world's most dynamic and beautiful wine regions-and the setting for the award-w[...]

This user-friendly guide is the only complete resource that identifies and describes all the amphibians and reptiles - salamanders, frogs and toads, lizards, snakes, and tortoises and turtles - that live in California. The species are described in richly detailed accounts that include range maps, li[...]

With perhaps 8,000 different species, beetles are easily the largest group of animals in California and can be found virtually everywhere in the state. They grapple over flower heads, lurk in pantries, paddle through pristine mountain streams, amble over dunes, and buzz about porch lights on warm ev[...]

Nine tales, selected and retold here by anthropologist and author Theodora Kroeber for the adult general-interest reader. The new foreword by her son, Karl Kroeber, provides context about the author's methods and describes his own personal connection to the stories themselves.[...]

An illustrated field guide that gathers information about agriculture and its environmental context, and answers the perennial question posed by California travelers: 'What is that, and why is it growing here?'. It explores the full range of the state's agriculture, balancing agribusiness triumphali[...]

Oak apples, honeydew and ambrosia galls, witches' brooms, and fasciations - all are types of plant galls, a commonly observed, yet little-understood botanical phenomenon. Often beautiful and bizarre, galls are growths of various shapes, sizes, and colors produced by host plants in response to invadi[...]

With its active fault systems, complex landforms, and myriad natural habitats, southern California boasts a rich and dynamic geologic environment. This abundantly illustrated volume at last provides an up-to-date, authoritative, and accessible resource for students and general readers interested in [...]

California's earliest European colonists - Russian merchants and Spanish missionaries - depended heavily on Native Americans for labor to build and maintain their colonies, but they did so in very different ways. This richly detailed book brings together disparate skeins of the past - including litt[...]

From the iconic lone cypress on the Monterey coastline to the palm trees of Beverly Hills and the magnificent coastal redwoods, trees are a defining element of California's spectacular and exceptionally diverse landscape. This abundantly illustrated, beautifully produced, easy-to-use volume is a one[...]

This innovative history of California opens up new vistas on the interrelationship among culture, nature, and society by focusing on the state's signature export - the orange. From the 1870s onward, California oranges were packaged in crates bearing colorful images of an Edenic landscape. This book [...]

Using nearly five hundred historical maps and many other illustrations, a lavishly illustrated volume covers five hundred years of history and offers a compelling and informative look at the transformation of the state from before European contact, through the Gold Rush, and up to the present day.[...]

Early Spanish explorers in the late eighteenth century found springtime California covered with spectacular carpets of wildflowers from San Francisco to San Diego. Yet today, invading plant species have devastated this nearly forgotten botanical heritage. In this lively, vividly detailed work, Richa[...]