Описание книги
A bookseller in San Francisco during the gold rush, Hubert Howe Bancroft (1832–1918) rose to become the man who would define the early history of California and the West. Creating what he called a “history factory,” he assembled a vast library of over sixty thousand books, maps, letters, and documents; hired scribes to copy material in private hands; employed interviewers to capture the memories of early Spanish and Mexican settlers; and published multiple volumes sold throughout the country by his subscription agents. In 1890 he published an eight-hundred-page autobiography, aptly entitled <i>Literary Industries</i>. Edited for the modern reader and yet relating the history of the West as it was taking place—and as it was being recorded—Kim Bancroft's abridged edition is a joy to read.