Audiobook – now available!

Imperial San Francisco was first published in 1999. With the launch of the audiobook version, I wanted to provide a resource for listeners to access the materials in the published book. In this website you’ll find images, references and further reading organised by the chapters in the book. There’s a list of website contents below.

I hope you find this website useful – do get in touch if you have any comments.

Gray Brechin, 2023

Maynard Dixon, "San Francisco-Mistress, Still, of the Pacific." San Francisco Chronicle, May 27, 1906. Courtesy San Francisco Academy of Comic Art.

Imperial San Francisco

“One of the very best books I have ever read about a place.”
— Jan Morris

ISF in the New York Times

March 2024, New York Times lists Imperial San Francisco among best books about California:

“This nonfiction book, first published in 1999 by the University of California Press, just came out as an audiobook. Tells a surprising saga of San Francisco’s early years, not the usual hearty tale of 49ers and Baghdad-by-the-Bay.”

“Imperial San Francisco is a great gift of a book, the product of extraordinary research, insight, and hard work that connects a lot of dots and gives me a reinvigorated focus and curiosity [about] what California culture was and what might become of it all.”
— Gary Snyder

Video introducing Imperial San Francisco audiobook.