This book was the first broad expose of the social and environmental damage inflicted by the growth of corporate agriculture in California. Factories in the Field--together with the work of Dorothea Lange, Paul Taylor, and John Steinbeck--dramatizes the misery of the dust bowl migrants hoping to find work in California agriculture. McWilliams starts with the scandals of the Spanish land grant purchases, and continues on to examine the experience of the various ethnic groups that have provided labor for California's agricultural industry--Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Filipinos,...

When Ishi, "the last wild Indian," came out of hiding in August 1911, he was quickly whisked away by train to San Francisco to meet Alfred Kroeber, one of the fathers of American anthropology. When Kroeber and Ishi came face to face, it was a momentous event, not only for each man but also for the cultures they represented. Each stood on the brink--one was in danger of losing something vital while the other was in danger of disappearing altogether.

Ishi was a survivor, and he viewed the bright lights of the big city with a mixture of awe and bemusement. What surprised everyone is how...

When Ishi, "the last wild Indian," came out of hiding in August 1911, he was quickly whisked away by train to San Francisco to meet Alfred Kroeber, one of the fathers of American anthropology. When Kroeber and Ishi came face to face, it was a momentous event, not only for each man but also for the cultures they represented. Each stood on the brink--one was in danger of losing something vital while the other was in danger of disappearing altogether.

Ishi was a survivor, and he viewed the bright lights of the big city with a mixture of awe and bemusement. What surprised everyone is how...