The California Missions Source Book: Key Information, Dramatic Images, and Fascinating Anecdotes Covering all Twenty-one Missions
If one has room in his library for only a single volume on California s Spanish missions The California Missions Source Book by David J. McLaughlin with Dr. Ruben G. Mendoza is the one to own. This sturdy source book with its spiral binding, slick heavy pages, and convenient 8Ã‚Â½ inches by 8Ã‚Â½ inches size is designed for field use and is a visual delight as well...The authors and designers have managed to cram into the 68 pages your money's worth of primary data. --Merdith Schuetz-Miller in SMRC Bulletin, Issue No. 2 - 2010The California Mission Source Book has a plethora of information that is easy to read and understand. Many children begin learning about the missions in the fourth and fifth grade, and this book would be a terrific tool for the classroom or at home working on a mission project for school. There is information on each mission, illustrations from the time period, recent photographs, as well as the history of the mission system as a whole. --Sacramento Book Review. Dec. 15 2009The California Missions Soucebook, compiled by publisher David McLaughlin with contributions by archaeologist Dr. Ruben Mendoza, provides an engaging introduction to the California missions. Largely a series of individual profiles of the state's twenty-one Franciscan settlements, each profile handsomely laid out on two facing pages, the Sourcebook begins with short summaries of the development of the mission endeavor as a whole, including the period since secularization in the mid 1830s. Each mission profile includes details about priests, Indians, mission sites and layouts, water sources, population, agriculture and livestock, and mission churches - including bells, art and artifacts - as well as significant events and special attractions. The concise, regular format is richly illustrated. Durable pages and handy cover-folds mark this as a book made to be used again and again. By design, this popular reference provides the kind of basic information that one expects in a general work targeting a broad audience, and does so more systematically than many counterparts. The book will be a handy guide for anyone wanting quick access to the most essential facts about the missions... Anyone interested in the missions will want to add this book to their collection. It represents a significant, attractively designed contribution to the popular literature on the subject. --Dr. Jack Williams in Boletin Volume 26, Number 1 and 2, 2009