The work is superb, but it's almost as if Brechin wants us to conclude that we shouldn't have a civilization. Brechin, a journalist turned scholar, writes in the active voice, bringing alive the tempestuous history of the city through anecdote and analysis. Imperial San Francisco earned Brechin a doctorate in geography from the University of California at Berkeley last year. Both books focus on how California's urban centers were nurtured by the destruction of their surroundings, the eating up of the ecology by mining, oil, and logging concerns. In a recent interview, Brechin said that he chose the science of geography as the medium for his explication of San Francisco because geography is multidisciplinary.
Geography encompasses history, sociology, and geology.
The study of geography, says Brechin, is the story of humanity's relationship with the rest of nature. And in nature, the modern city is at the center of a whirlpool. Both cities took their sustenance from the contado , a richly layered Italian word connoting countryside, territory, a hinterland paying tribute to the dominant city. The emergence of both Rome and of San Francisco was based on the mining of metals for purposes of creating wealth and waging war. Both were run by family dynasties whose wealth was rooted in real estate, and in ownership of the means of communication.