“Carlsson brings his unique combination of erudition, curiosity and passionate progressivism to a remarkably wide range of subjects–from the city’s profaned natural glories, to little-known episodes in its labor history, to a Homeric list of people, organizations and movements” –Gary Kamiya, Columnist, San Francisco Chronicle
Hidden San Francisco is a guidebook like no other. It’s a radical, alternative guidebook and history of San Francisco, complete with maps detailing walking and bike routes around the city.
San Francisco is an iconic and symbolic city. But only when you look beyond the picture-postcards of the Golden Gate Bridge and the quaint cable cars do you realize that the city’s most interesting stories are not the Summer of Love, the Beats or even the latest gold rush in Silicon Valley.
Carlsson delves into the Bay Area’s long prehistory, examining the region’s geography and the lives of its inhabitants before the 1849 Gold Rush changed everything, setting in motion the clash between capital and labor that shaped the modern city. Structured around the four major themes of ecology, labor, transit and dissent, Chris Carlsson’s book peels back the layers of San Francisco’s history to reveal a storied past: behind old walls and gleaming glass facades lurk former industries, secret music and poetry venues, forgotten terrorist bombings, and much more.
From the perspective of the students and secretaries, hippies and beatniks, longshoremen and waitresses,
Hidden San Francisco uncovers dozens of overlooked, forgotten and buried histories that pulse through the streets and hills even today, inviting the reader to see themselves in the middle of the ongoing, everyday process of making history together.
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Hi, I'm Chris Carlsson
Chris Carlsson is a writer, San Francisco historian, professor, bicyclist, tour guide, blogger, photographer, book and magazine designer. He's lived in San Francisco since 1978. He has written two books, edited five, including Critical Mass: Bicycling's Defiant Celebration (AK Press: 1992), The Political Edge (City Lights, 2005), Ten Years That Shook the City (City Lights, 2011) and others. He helped co-found Critical Mass in September 1992, and has ridden with Critical Mass rides in a dozen cities on three continents since then. He has been propelled into extended world travels since 2002. He has directed Shaping San Francisco since its inception in the mid-1990s, and continues to be co-director of the archive of San Francisco history at FoundSF.org. He also conducts award-winning bicycle history tours a dozen times a year, and hosts an ongoing Public Talks series in San Francisco.
www.chriscarlsson.com
