CALIFORNIA FROM THE CONQUEST IN 1846 TO THE SECOND VIGILANCE COMMITTEE IN SAN FRANCISCO A STUDY OF AMERICAN CHARACTER. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1886. 17.5x11.5 cm (octavo), pp. [1-2] [i-vii] viii-xii [xiii] xiv-xv [xvi] [1] 2-513 [514: blank] [515-526: ads], double-page map, publisher's brown pebbled cloth, front and spine panels stamped in gold, top edge gilt, other edges trimmed, slate coated endpapers. First edition, first printing. A history of American California during its formative years from 1846 to 1856 intended "to help the reader towards an understanding of two things: namely, the modern American State of California, and our national character as displayed in that land" (page [1]). "This is one of the best authorities upon the events of that decade" (Cowan). Part of the "American Commonwealths" series edited by Horace E. Scudder. Josiah Royce (1855-1916) was born in California to parents who had traveled overland from Council Bluffs to California in 1849. In the summer of 1882 Royce moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was one of the preeminent American philosophers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, primarily known for his work in metaphysical idealism at Harvard University. However, he was raised and schooled in California. This unique background allowed him to write his native state's history with a deeply personal, psychological, and critical eye, even conducting primary interviews with figures like Frémont. Royce’s writing is full of delicious and unexpected irony. He was very critical of the actions of the U.S. government against Mexico leading up to the war. His examination of historical documents, including the dispatch Gillespie brought to Frémont at Klamath Lake, is meticulous (and he is effusive in his thanks to "Mr. H. H. Bancroft.") "The American as conqueror is unwilling to appear in public as a pure aggressor; he dare not seize California as Russia has seized so much land in Asia or Napoleon, with full French approval, seized whatever he wanted. The American wants to persuade not only the world but himself that he is doing God's service in a peaceable spirit, even when he violently takes what he has determined to get." Cowan (1933), p. 545. Howes R 487. Wheat, Gold Rush 171. Zamorano Eighty 66. An ex-lending library copy from the Richmond, Maine, Library Association with their "rules and regulations" slip affixed to the front paste-down and library stamp on page [1]. Cloth lightly rubbed at upper spine end, a tight, bright, nearly fine copy. (#179137).
Price: $650.00
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