No city is as proud of its military heritage as San Diego, known as "Navy Town, USA." Congress also has designated San Diego as "the Birthplace of Naval Aviation." However, its community fabric reflects a more diverse and tightly woven relationship with our nation's defense. Over the past century, the city has invented and then reinvented itself in response to shifting world affairs and national priorities. It began with a successful campaign to become a West Coast Navy base in the early 1900s. By the 1930s, military aircraft manufacturing drove economic development. After explosive growth in World War II, San Diego emerged as an established military metropolis. At the dawn of the Cold War, San Diego recast itself as a home for Cold War research and development and defense contractors. Today, San Diego is an internationally renowned defense science and technology development center, a city in which one in four jobs and fully 50 percent of regional domestic product are defense related. Like no other city in America, San Diego has grown from a remote military presidio outpost to become a preeminent Pacific powerhouse.

"This illustrated book presents the intriguing story of how the Navy slowly came to appreciate San Diego's attributes and then took bold action to consolidate its position there. Highlighting these pages is a parade of rousing personalities that include plucky congressmen, local officials, naval officers, activists, and other colorful San Diegans. Such a discerning history provides a sweeping and long overdue view of the city and its naval bases that have influenced the lives of thousands of Americans."--BOOK JACKET.

David Vine recounts how the British & US governments created the Diego Garcia base, making the native Chagossians homeless in the process. He details the strategic significance of this remote location & also describes recent efforts by the exiles to regain their territory.

Fortress California, now in paperback for the first time, links the growth of the U.S. military-industrial complex to civic leaders who competed for military bases and military contracts to ensure economic growth. Analyzing the growth of Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco from 1910 to 1961, Roger W. Lotchin discredits the assumption that the industrialization of the Sunbelt was a result of a partnership between industry and the military. He provides instead a detailed and forceful argument that municipalities used federal resources to build urban empires and metropolitan-military complexes. These have increased the flow of federal dollars into the state, thereby shifting the focus of the military-industrial complex from warfare to welfare.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1848 Edition. From Fort Leavenworth, In Missouri To San Diego, In California; Including Parts Of Arkansas, Del Norte, And Gila Rivers.