Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin, With a New Preface [Paperback]

One complaint that has already been voiced about this book is that it is not reall "about" San Francisco at all, but rather makes a point about all cities. That complaint is true in that author's theoretical underpinings for his argument extend to examples outside of San Francisco. Really though, what else would the author do?

Personally, I found authors attempt to relate San Francisco to Rome and other cities to be interesting and relevant.

Another complaint voiced in these reviews is authors tone. That tone has been described as "shrill". I would have to concur with that complaint. I found the tone of this book to be distracting. I would venture to guess that anyone, ANYONE who reads this book is likely amenable to his "Cities suck" thesis. To belabor the point in the manner that author does is just beating a dead horse.

In defense of author, he doesn't present himself as a true "academic" but as a sort of journalist/academic cross-trainer. I found that perspective refreshing. Author is impassioned about the subject of book in a way that makes you put up with the occasional hectoring and shrillness.

One fundamental problem I had with the substance, rather then the style of the book: Author repeatedly discusses various civic improvement schemes as plots to "increase real estate values". Query: Is that really such a nefarious scheme? If you look at California today, property ownership is hardly the exclusive province of the elite. In this way, I think the book unwittingly lends supports to an alternative, and contradictory hypotheses: That the actions that economic elites take in their own self interest ultimately benefit those outside their own social class.

So, that's something to think about.

That aside, I found this to be a very entertaining and enlightening history of the Bay Area. Using Lewis Mumford's concept of the Pyramid of Mining, Brechin structures his history along these main lines: the Gold Rush; San Francisco as the Golden Gate of US dominance of Asia; water, Hetch Hetchy and land values; newspapers and the shaping of public opinion; Mining and Munitions; and finally UC Berkeley, E.O. Lawrence and the mining of Uranium and Plutonium.

Brechin's book is a serious, down to earth history. It is important for understanding not only the history of the west, but also the history of the US and Western Civilization's march from east to west to encircle the globe.

The comments in the next few paragraphs are my conceptual riffs - my connecting the dots - the dots that Brechin provides.

Brechin's work reminds me of David Ovason's book "The Secret Architecture of Our Nation's Capital." Like Ovason, Brechin brings an art historian's eye to San Francisco's cityscape and public art - telling the history behind the art, what it means and what the underlying story really is. Whereas the first book deals with Washington, D.C. as the New Rome filled with Masonic symbolism expressed through astrological orbits, "Imperial San Francisco" deals with that city as an even later New Rome - a Constantinople -- dominated by the technology of Mining and Munitions expressed through atomic orbits. There is an axis that follows directly from Washington, DC through the Gold Rush of 1849 and on to the bright star in the east over Hiroshima in August 1945. It makes me wonder if the fireballs of August 6 and 9 in 1945 are somehow related to the sun's setting position in Washington around August 12th of every year. (see Ovason for more details).

In 333 AD Roman Emperor Constantine the Great moved his capital from Rome to Constantinople. I was in Istanbul (Constantinople) in 1995 and was struck at how similar its topography is to San Francisco. I learned from Brechin's book that I was far from the first to note the similarities. For example, California pioneer John Fremont named the Golden Gate in reference to the Golden Horn of Constantinople - the water route by which the riches of the east flowed to the capital. Over the years many San Franciscan city boosters have hailed San Francisco as the New Rome and the New Constantinople.

Brechin explores how both Rome and SF both built their pyramids of power on a basis of gold mining, and how water was channeled via long aqueduct systems to both.

He explains and documents that the Polk administration knew of the existence of gold in California at least two years before it was publicly announced. Once the stage was set and the time was right, Polk presented a huge nugget of gold to Congress and the Gold Rush was on. And what a myth the Gold Rush turned out to be! Most lost money. Indeed, as Brechin shows, each $1 of gold produced cost a total of about $5 to produce when land degradation, soil erosion, clean up and other costs are included.

Toward the end of the book, the author traces how Silicon Valley arose. What he doesn't get into, but others have, is how similar the dot.com bomb is to the Gold Rush. We are even now living in the shadow of the tech wreck, which while born in the Bay Area, affects the national and even the world economy.

All in all, a very interesting read. Highly recommended.