California is a region of rich geographic and human diversity. The Elusive Eden charts the historical development of California, beginning with landscape and climate and the development of Native cultures, and continues through the election of Governor Gavin Newsom. It portrays a land of remarkable richness and complexity, settled by waves of people with diverse cultures from around the world. Now in its fifth edition, this up-to-date text provides an authoritative, original, and balanced survey of California history incorporating the latest scholarship. Coverage includes new material on political upheavals, the global banking crisis, changes in education and the economy, and California's shifting demographic profile. This edition of The Elusive Eden features expanded coverage of gender, class, race, and ethnicity, giving voice to the diverse individuals and groups who have shaped California. With its continued emphasis on geography and environment, the text also gives attention to regional issues, moving from the metropolitan areas to the state's rural and desert areas. Lively and readable, The Elusive Eden is organized in ten parts. Each chronological section begins with an in-depth narrative chapter that spotlights an individual or group at a critical moment of historical change, bringing California history to life.

In 1971 Manual Elizalde, a Philippine government minister with a dubious background, discovered a band of twenty-six "Stone Age" rain-forest dwellers living in total isolation. The tribe was soon featured in American newscasts and graced the cover of National Geographic. But after a series of aborted anthropological ventures, the Tasaday Reserve established by Ferdinand Marcos was closed to visitors, and the tribe vanished from public view. Twelve years later, a Swiss reporter hiked into the area and discovered that the Tasaday were actually farmers whom Elizalde had coerced into dressing in leaves and posing with stone tools. The "anthropological find of the century" had become the "ethnographic hoax of the century." Or maybe not. Robin Hemley tells a story that is more complex than either the hoax proponents or the authenticity advocates might care to admit. It is a gripping and ultimately tragic tale of innocence found, lost, and found again. The author provides an afterword for this Bison Books edition.

The Elusive Eden charts the historical development of California, beginning with landscape and climate and the development of Native cultures, and continues through the census of 2010 and the election of Jerry Brown to his third term as governor. It portrays a land of remarkable richness and complexity, settled by waves of people with diverse cultures from around the world. Organized in ten parts, each part develops a major theme or issue in the chronological development of the state. The first chapter in Parts II through IX is an in-depth narrative spotlight of an individual or group at a critical moment of change. In Parts I and X, the first chapter helps to place California's whole story in context. For additional resources, please see co-author, Mary Ann Irwin's site: http://www.TeachingElusiveEden.com.

A bewitching look at nonnative species in American ecosystems, by the heir apparent to McKibben and Quammen.

Johannesburg: The Elusive Metropolis is a pioneering effort to insert South Africa’s largest city into urban theory, on its own terms. Johannesburg is Africa’s premier metropolis. Yet theories of urbanization have cast it as an emblem of irresolvable crisis, the spatial embodiment of unequal economic relations and segregationist policies, and a city that responds to but does not contribute to modernity on the global scale. Complicating and contesting such characterizations, the contributors to this collection reassess classic theories of metropolitan modernity as they explore the experience of “city-ness” and urban life in post-apartheid South Africa. They portray Johannesburg as a polycentric and international city with a hybrid history that continually permeates the present. Turning its back on rigid rationalities of planning and racial separation, Johannesburg has become a place of intermingling and improvisation, a city that is fast developing its own brand of cosmopolitan culture. The volume’s essays include an investigation of representation and self-stylization in the city, an ethnographic examination of friction zones and practices of social reproduction in inner-city Johannesburg, and a discussion of the economic and literary relationship between Johannesburg and Maputo, Mozambique’s capital. One contributor considers how Johannesburg’s cosmopolitan sociability enabled the anticolonial projects of Mohandas Ghandi and Nelson Mandela. Journalists, artists, architects, writers, and scholars bring contemporary Johannesburg to life in ten short pieces, including reflections on music and megamalls, nightlife, built spaces, and life for foreigners in the city. Contributors: Arjun Appadurai, Carol A. Breckenridge, Lindsay Bremner, David Bunn, Fred de Vries, Nsizwa Dlamini, Mark Gevisser, Stefan Helgesson, Julia Hornberger, Jonathan Hyslop, Grace Khunou, Frédéric Le Marcis, Xavier Livermon, John Matshikiza, Achille Mbembe, Robert Muponde, Sarah Nuttall, Tom Odhiambo, Achal Prabhala, AbdouMaliq Simone