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Historic Monterey: California's forgotten first capital
Book by Abrahamson, Eric
47 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
About the author
Eric Abrahamson
9 books10 followersEric Abrahamson is the youngest ever full professor of management at Columbia University's School of Business.
Abrahamson studies the creation, spread, use and rejection of innovative techniques for managing organizations and their employees. He is best known for his work on fads and fashions in management techniques. He is also an expert on the management of organizational change. He has explored the topic of change management in Change Without Pain: How Managers Can Overcome Initiative Overload, Organizational Chaos, and Employee Burnout (Harvard Business School Press, 2005), which won a Best Book of the Year award from Strategy and Business.
More recently, Abrahamson has been studying the dynamics of moderately messy system - offices, organizations and even industrial districts - that would function less well were they any less messy or any more orderly. A summary of his scholarly work was published in Research in Organizational Behavior under the title "Disorganizational Theory and Disorganizational Behavior: Towards and Etiology of Messes" (2002). Most recently, Abrahamson has coauthored, with David Freedman, a book that popularizes these ideas about the benefits of moderately messy system: A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder, How cluttered closets, jumbled offices, and on-the-fly planning make the world a better place (Little, Brown and Company, 2007).
He lectures and consults on these topics for companies around the world.
Abrahamson studies the creation, spread, use and rejection of innovative techniques for managing organizations and their employees. He is best known for his work on fads and fashions in management techniques. He is also an expert on the management of organizational change. He has explored the topic of change management in Change Without Pain: How Managers Can Overcome Initiative Overload, Organizational Chaos, and Employee Burnout (Harvard Business School Press, 2005), which won a Best Book of the Year award from Strategy and Business.
More recently, Abrahamson has been studying the dynamics of moderately messy system - offices, organizations and even industrial districts - that would function less well were they any less messy or any more orderly. A summary of his scholarly work was published in Research in Organizational Behavior under the title "Disorganizational Theory and Disorganizational Behavior: Towards and Etiology of Messes" (2002). Most recently, Abrahamson has coauthored, with David Freedman, a book that popularizes these ideas about the benefits of moderately messy system: A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder, How cluttered closets, jumbled offices, and on-the-fly planning make the world a better place (Little, Brown and Company, 2007).
He lectures and consults on these topics for companies around the world.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 6, 2016
This guide book to historic Monterey, California relates the history and significance of the town, from the day of its discovery in the 1542 by Cabrillo, a Portuguese navigator sailing under the flag of Spain, until the present day, which would be 1989, when the book was published.
Monterey was the location of the capitol of the Spanish possession of Alta California from 1775 until the US government claimed Alta California for the US in 1846, following prior negotiations with Mexico on obtaining the territory, which subsequently broke down with the Mexican-American War.
In 1849, the US military government in Monterey convened a Constitutional Convention; following the adoption of a California State constitution, which established that California would be a free State not a slave State, at its accession to Statehood, the Capitol of California was also moved to San Jose. From then on, Monterey's importance and population steadily dwindled, overshadowed by the State's rapid development, with the Gold Rush, agricultural development and so forth. By the end of the 19th Century residents began efforts to preserve the historic buildings and adobes in the town, given the significance of the locations as the sites of US takeover of California from Mexico, the location of the California Constitutional Convention, the location of the State's first theater, and many other firsts. Because development bypassed Monterey, many of the historic buildings were not redeveloped over the years, although others fell into ruin and others were torn down. The building that housed the US military government in California was torn down and became the site of two service stations.
Monterey became a tourist mecca in the late 19th century and later a location for various military schools and bases. It went through a sardine fishing and canning boom - the setting of Monterey writer Steinbeck's Cannery Row - until the sardines were fished out. It is a quiet, quaint tourist town that is also host to various music and cultural festivals, and is known as an artists retreat. The setting of the town, on beautiful Monterey Bay, with a semi-circular plain upon which the town is located, ringed with forested hills, must be a wonderful location to absorb the sights and sounds of a less developed California, as it must have been for centuries.
This is an interesting book that does give a succinct timeline of history in Monterey, written in a straight-forward, unspectacular manner. For anyone who is interested in California history, or may be interested in traveling to Monterey, it's a good introduction to the town and its historic significance, although by now, almost 30 years later, development may well have caught up with Monterey. Any and all topics that may be considered controversial are skimmed over, such as the stories of how the Indians actually were treated by the Spanish and later the Americans. The Indians are mentioned respectfully and the tribes that lived near Monterey are said to have been peaceful. There is nothing said about the mistreatment of the Indians under Spanish rule.
The book includes printed within the back cover the Path of History map which shows the location of the historic structures, adobes, El Castillo, the Custom House, and so forth, in Monterey.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in travelling to Monterey, or anyone who wishes to learn more about California history.
Monterey was the location of the capitol of the Spanish possession of Alta California from 1775 until the US government claimed Alta California for the US in 1846, following prior negotiations with Mexico on obtaining the territory, which subsequently broke down with the Mexican-American War.
In 1849, the US military government in Monterey convened a Constitutional Convention; following the adoption of a California State constitution, which established that California would be a free State not a slave State, at its accession to Statehood, the Capitol of California was also moved to San Jose. From then on, Monterey's importance and population steadily dwindled, overshadowed by the State's rapid development, with the Gold Rush, agricultural development and so forth. By the end of the 19th Century residents began efforts to preserve the historic buildings and adobes in the town, given the significance of the locations as the sites of US takeover of California from Mexico, the location of the California Constitutional Convention, the location of the State's first theater, and many other firsts. Because development bypassed Monterey, many of the historic buildings were not redeveloped over the years, although others fell into ruin and others were torn down. The building that housed the US military government in California was torn down and became the site of two service stations.
Monterey became a tourist mecca in the late 19th century and later a location for various military schools and bases. It went through a sardine fishing and canning boom - the setting of Monterey writer Steinbeck's Cannery Row - until the sardines were fished out. It is a quiet, quaint tourist town that is also host to various music and cultural festivals, and is known as an artists retreat. The setting of the town, on beautiful Monterey Bay, with a semi-circular plain upon which the town is located, ringed with forested hills, must be a wonderful location to absorb the sights and sounds of a less developed California, as it must have been for centuries.
This is an interesting book that does give a succinct timeline of history in Monterey, written in a straight-forward, unspectacular manner. For anyone who is interested in California history, or may be interested in traveling to Monterey, it's a good introduction to the town and its historic significance, although by now, almost 30 years later, development may well have caught up with Monterey. Any and all topics that may be considered controversial are skimmed over, such as the stories of how the Indians actually were treated by the Spanish and later the Americans. The Indians are mentioned respectfully and the tribes that lived near Monterey are said to have been peaceful. There is nothing said about the mistreatment of the Indians under Spanish rule.
The book includes printed within the back cover the Path of History map which shows the location of the historic structures, adobes, El Castillo, the Custom House, and so forth, in Monterey.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in travelling to Monterey, or anyone who wishes to learn more about California history.
Displaying 1 of 1 review