"San Francisco Bay is the largest estuary on the Pacific coast of North America. Along with the adjoining delta formed by the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, it also forms the solar plexus of California's complex, fragile plumbing system. In this incisive and original work, Matthew Booker vividly recounts the successive waves of interaction between people and place that have molded--and imperiled--the modern Bay. This is rich, cutting-edge environmental history at its best, and a compelling read, too." --David M. Kennedy, author of Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945



"...A thorough and highly engaging account of the use and development of the Bay shoreline and intertidal zone, a region often understudied by cultural and ecological historians. This ecologically grounded narrative is an important contribution to our understanding of the development trajectory of the region."--Robin Grossinger, Senior Scientist, San Francisco Estuary Institute



"I see San Francisco Bay from my house everyday, but I no longer look at it in the same way. Matthew Booker's Down by the Bay is one of those books that transforms the familiar. He writes lucidly and eloquently about a forgotten past and an often hidden landscape that, once recognized, traces a possible future." --Richard White, author of The Middle Ground: Indians Empires and Republics in the Great Lakes Region