This work is intended as a useful companion for anybody interested in general or basic knowledge about any aspect of the most populous state in the Union. It is designed to be serviceable to a wide variety of readers and consultants, whose range might include residents and tourists, high-school and college students, as well as scholars seeking a ready reference. At present no single volume comprehends such a scope as this one and although it treats its subjects briefly, many an entry also includes data not found elsewhere in a single place. Reference to hundreds of books and articles would be required to provide the information that is here between the two covers.

Examining California's formative years, this innovative study seeks to discover the origins of the California dream and the social, psychological, and symbolic impact it has had not only on Californians but also on the rest of the country.

This concise version contains brief biographies of important authors, plot summaries of individual works, descriptions of important literary movements, and a wealth of information on other aspects of American literary life and history from the Colonial period to the modern era.

Sailor's Hope provides a moving account of a multi-faceted man, tracking his engagement with the extraordinary changes occurring in the Atlantic and Pacific Worlds in the decades after the American and French Revolutions. William Cooper was born in poverty in industrializing Scotland. Without any formal education, he worked his way up through the British merchant marine to the position of captain on voyages linking Britain with Iberia and North America.