Customer Reviews

Historic San Francisco: A Concise History and Guide

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is a hybrid between a history book and a guide book. Each chapter historically chronicles a meaningful period of time betweensignificant milestones (i.e. the goldrush of 1849 or the earthquake of 1906). Following each chapter is a guide to monuments, landmarks, and musuems that have items pertaining to the preceding information.

There is a fair amount of illustrations and photographs and the writing style of Rand Richards is very readable. I highly recommend this book to anybody living in or planning to visit the San Francisco bay area.

while this is a very concise history of the city, with a lot of material packed into relatively few pages, I find it extremely odd that the author skips from The Summer of Love in the late 1960s all the way to the earthquake of 1989. One has to ask, what informed the author's choice to ignore twenty years of history? Did the murder of mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk by Dan White never happen? Did the gay civil rights movement and the development of The Castro neighborhood into the most visible gay community in the world not happen? This seems an irresponsible omission on the part of the author. What a shame.

I really can't recommend this book enough. Mr Richards is a fine writer who breathes life into San Francisco's history using an array of colouful (and often hilarious) anecdotes. I've read a number of other books on the the bay area's history and for sheer enjoyment this stands head-and-shoulders above the rest.

Historic San Francisco is written in a light, entertaining style that makes history enjoyable. Richards hits a wide range to topics that relate back to San Francisco as it is today, offering an opportunity for readers to create their own tour and see the locations being discussed. The book is not intended to be comprehensive but rather, covers what I see as some of the best facets of the city. Accurate and well illustrated, Historic San Francisco ranks among the best of the large number of books I own on San Francisco's history. It's a must-buy for San Franciscophiles.

The book is a great, interesting read. The information is condensed, clear and flows easily- however the book would really really benefit by including a map of the MODERN city, this way a reader can see exactly where some of the things the book discusses took place.

This is a very well-written and entertaining history/guidebook to San Francisco. The chapter on the Barbary Coast is especially interesting, as are the anecdotes from San Francisco's early history. Far better than the bilge offered by Lonely Planet and Time Out.

If you don't have an affection for San Francisco history, you should have one after reading this short book. While I would have appreciated a few more anecdotes about San Francisco in this book, I really appreciated the breadth of history it was able to convey -- and in a reasonable length. Highly recommended.

thanks! i received the book in great condition only one day after placing my order!

I think that I didn't like this book just because we had to read it at skool as an assignment