History

50% OFF WATER & THE SHAPING OF CALIFORNIA; 20% OFF MAPS, LAYPERSON’S GUIDES, TEACHER RESOURCES

Here’s a sweet deal for the holidays: Get 50 percent off the paperback Water & the Shaping of California, a treasure trove of gorgeous color photos, water literature and famous sayings about water. This beautifully designed oversize book discusses the engineering feats, political decisions and popular opinion that reshaped the nature – flood and drought – and society – gold, grain and growth – that led to the water projects that created the California we know today. The book Includes a foreword by the late Kevin Starr, the Golden State’s premier historian.

After more a year of obstacles, the federal government will resume a project to fulfill an 80-year-old promise. The Trump administration halted work in October 2017 on a plan to build a village for tribal members who fished the Columbia River for millennia, but last week, money reappeared in the budget.

The inspiration of nature and the importance of history are woven into the fabric of America’s public lands. Immortalized by some of our nation’s greatest literary heroes, public lands have been the settings and subjects of novels, poems and songs. For some influential and revered writers, their haunts and homes are now preserved as historic places, allowing public lands to help tell their story. Some of the greatest literary history lies within public lands, and future literary greats visit to hear the echoes and write the next chapter. Here are some of the authors whose works are forever memorialized in public lands.

For 120 years, Sunset magazine has been synonymous with California living. Created by Southern Pacific Railroad to promote westward travel, Sunset has long been a tastemaker for the masses, popularizing backyard barbecues, hot tubs, mid-century architecture, weekend getaways, California wines and food culture, including a boom in avocados.