Davis: Radical Changes, Deep Constants (Making of America Series)

Placed on the map by the California Pacific Railroad in 1868, Davis has been radically different things over its thirteen-some decades: wheat-growing village, almond cultivation center, university farm locale, urbanizing town, exploding suburb, progressive community, and university city. Yet throughout these changes Davis remained the same in many ways, among them its efforts to retain a small town character and a vital downtown.

Author and historian John Lofland, professor emeritus at UC Davis, specializes in the sociology of local history and historic preservation. In this volume he examines Davis history as the story of several different communities, each a reinvention of its old self in response to a changing nation and world, but with enduring themes that made each undeniably Davis.