This is a bibliography of California history. Bibliography contains academic level English language books (including translations) and journal articles, published mainly post World War II.

Works listed here are cited in the notes or bibliographies of scholarly sources. Each is published by an academic or major press, written by a recognized expert, or substantially reviewed in scholarly journals; borderline cases are omitted. A selection of primary sources are included. Many of the books below carry their own bibliographies; see the Further reading section for other bibliographies, and the External links section for historical sites, academic sites, and museums.

Citations follow APA style. Book have citations to academic journal or mainstream published reviews when available. For books only partly about the subject, relevant chapter or section titles are provided when useful and available. Translators of the original-language edition are included when possible. In cases where a title or name has appeared with more than one English spelling, the most recent published form is used and a footnote documents any earlier title under which the work appeared.

Surveys Series Kevin Starr, former professor of History and California State Librarian has written many highly regarded books on the history of California including the multi-volume Americans & the California Dream Series.

California: A History. New York: Modern Library. (2007). Single Volume History of California. Coast of Dreams: California on the Edge, 1990–2003. New York: Knopf. (2004).

Americans & the California Dream Series by Kevin Starr, published by Oxford University Press Americans and the California Dream, 1850–1915. (1973) Inventing the Dream: California through the Progressive Era. (1985) Material Dreams: Southern California through the 1920s. (1990) Endangered Dreams: The Great Depression in California. (1996) The Dream Endures: California Enters the 1940s. (1997) Embattled Dreams: California in War and Peace, 1940–1950. (2003) Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950–1963. (2011)

General surveys

This section contains general works about the entire history of California or a substantial portion of California history. For thematic gemera; surveys see the section below.

Bean, W. (1968). California: An interpretive history. McGraw-Hill. Deverell, W., & Igler, D. (Eds.). (2008). A companion to California history. Wiley-Blackwell. Faragher, J. M. (2022). California: An American history. Yale University Press. Gutiérrez, R. A., & Orsi, R. J. (Eds.). (1998). Contested Eden: California before the Gold Rush. University of California Press. McWilliams, C. (1999). California: The great exception. University of California Press. (Original work published 1949) Rawls, J. J., & Bean, W. (2012). California: An interpretive history (10th ed.). McGraw-Hill. Rice, R. B., Bullough, W. A., Orsi, R. J., Irwin, M. A., Magliari, M. F., & Tsu, C. M. (2019). The elusive Eden: A new history of California (5th ed.). Waveland Press. Rolle, A., & Verge, A. C. (2014). California: A history (8th ed.). John Wiley & Sons. Starr, K. (2005). California: A history. Modern Library.

Survey type thematic works Broussard, A. S. (2012). Expectations of equality: A history of Black Westerners. Harlan Davidson. Cornford, D. (Ed.). (1995). Working people of California. University of California Press. Farmer, J. (2013). Trees in paradise: A California history. W. W. Norton. Fisher, J. A. (1971). The political development of the Black community in California, 1850–1950. California History, 50(3), 256–266. Geschwind, C.-H. (2001). California earthquakes: Science, risk, and the politics of hazard mitigation. Johns Hopkins University Press. Glass, F. B. (2016). From mission to microchip: A history of the California labor movement. University of California Press. Gutiérrez, D. G. (1995). Walls and mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican immigrants, and the politics of ethnicity. University of California Press. Heizer, R. F., & Almquist, A. J. (1971). The other Californians: Prejudice and discrimination under Spain, Mexico, and the United States to 1920. University of California Press. Liebman, E. (1983). California farmland: A history of large agricultural landholdings. Rowman & Allanheld. McEvoy, A. F. (1986). The fisherman's problem: Ecology and law in the California fisheries, 1850–1980. Cambridge University Press. Menchaca, M. (1995). The Mexican outsiders: A community history of marginalization and discrimination in California. University of Texas Press. Olmstead, A. L., & Rhode, P. W. (2017). A history of California agriculture. Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics, University of California. Pincetl, S. S. (1999). Transforming California: A political history of land use and development. Johns Hopkins University Press. Pyne, S. J. (2016). California: A fire survey. University of Arizona Press. Robinson, W. W. (1948). Land in California: The story of mission lands, ranchos, squatters, mining claims, railroad grants, land scrip, homesteads. University of California Press. Shipek, F. C. (1988). Pushed into the rocks: Southern California Indian land tenure, 1769–1986. University of Nebraska Press. Street, R. S. (2004). Beasts of the field: A narrative history of California farmworkers, 1769–1913. Stanford University Press. Taylor, Q. (1998). In search of the racial frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528–1990. W. W. Norton. Walker, R. A. (2004). The conquest of bread: 150 years of agribusiness in California. New Press. Wollenberg, C. (1976). All deliberate speed: Segregation and exclusion in California schools, 1855–1975. University of California Press.

Regional surveys Gibson, C. (2019). El Norte: The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America. Atlantic Monthly Press. Goodwin, R. (2019). América: The Epic Story of Spanish North America, 1493–1898 (Illustrated edition). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kessell, J. L. (2002). Spain in the Southwest: A narrative history of colonial New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and California. University of Oklahoma Press. Solnit, R. (2014). Savage Dreams: a Journey into the Hidden Wars of the American West. University of California Press.

Native and Spanish California (pre 1821) Indigenous peoples

Akins, D. B., & Bauer, W. J., Jr. (2021). We are the land: A history of Native California. University of California Press. Anderson, M. K. (1999). The fire, pruning, and coppice management of temperate ecosystems for basketry material by California Indian tribes. Human Ecology, 27(1), 79–113. Anderson, M. K. (2005). Tending the wild: Native American knowledge and the management of California's natural resources. University of California Press. Arkush, B. S. (1993). Yokuts trade networks and native culture change in central and eastern California. Ethnohistory, 40(4). Bauer, W. J. (2016). California through Native Eyes: Reclaiming History. University of Washington Press. Bean, L. J. (Ed.). (1994). The Ohlone past and present: Native Americans of the San Francisco Bay region (Ballena Press Anthropological Papers No. 42). Ballena Press. Bean, L. J., & Blackburn, T. C. (Eds.). (1976). Native Californians: A theoretical retrospective. Ballena Press. Forbes, J. D. (1969). Native Americans of California and Nevada. Naturegraph Publishers. Gamble, L. H. (2008). The Chumash world at European contact: Power, trade, and feasting among complex hunter-gatherers. University of California Press. Heizer, R. F. (Ed.). (1978). California (W. C. Sturtevant, Gen. Ed.; Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 8). Smithsonian Institution. Kroeber, A. L. (1925). Handbook of the Indians of California (Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 78). Government Printing Office. Lightfoot, K. G., & Parrish, O. (2009). California Indians and their environment: An introduction. University of California Press. McCawley, W. (1996). The first Angelinos: The Gabrielino Indians of Los Angeles. Malki Museum Press; Ballena Press. Sutton, M. Q. (2021). An introduction to Native North America (6th ed.). Routledge. Timbrook, J. (1990). Ethnobotany of Chumash Indians, California, based on collections by John P. Harrington. Economic Botany, 44(2), 236–253.

Spanish colonization and the mission system

Archibald, R. (1976). The economy of the Alta California mission, 1803–1821. Southern California Quarterly, 58(2), 227-240. Beebe, R. M., & Senkewicz, R. M. (Eds.). (2001). Lands of promise and despair: Chronicles of early California, 1535–1846. Santa Clara University; Heyday Books. Bolton, H. E. (1927). Fray Juan Crespí: Missionary explorer on the Pacific coast, 1769–1774. University of California Press. Bouvier, V. M. (2001). Women and the conquest of California, 1542–1840: Codes of silence. University of Arizona Press. Castillo, E. D. (1994). Gender status decline, resistance, and accommodation among female neophytes in the missions of California: A San Gabriel case study. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 18(1), 67-93. Chapman, C. E. (1921). A history of California: The Spanish period. Macmillan. Dartt-Newton, D., & Erlandson, J. M. (2006). Little choice for the Chumash: Colonialism, cattle, and coercion in mission period California. American Indian Quarterly, 30(3), 416-430. Garr, D. (1972). Planning, politics and plunder: The missions and Indian pueblos of Hispanic California. Southern California Quarterly, 54(4), 291-312. Geiger, M. J. (1969). Franciscan missionaries in Hispanic California, 1769–1848: A biographical dictionary. Huntington Library. Gentilcore, R. L. (1961). Missions and mission lands of Alta California. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 51(1), 46-72. Gordillo Brockmann, B. (2025). Julio César, Luiseño musician: California Indian oral tradition, Franciscan music instruction, and California missions, 1769–1846. Ethnohistory, 72(4), 459-482. Guest, F. F. (1996). Hispanic California revisited: Essays (D. B. Nunis Jr., Ed.). Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library. Hackel, S. W. (1997). Land, labor, and production: The colonial economy of Spanish and Mexican California. California History, 76(2-3), 111-146. Hackel, S. W. (2005). Children of Coyote, missionaries of Saint Francis: Indian-Spanish relations in colonial California, 1769–1850. University of North Carolina Press. Hackel, S. W. (Ed.). (2018). The worlds of Junípero Serra: Historical contexts and cultural representations. University of California Press. Hull, K. L. (2009). Pestilence and persistence: Yosemite Indian demography and culture in colonial California. University of California Press. Hyslop, S. G. (2012). Contest for California: From Spanish colonization to the American conquest. Arthur H. Clark Company. Jackson, R. H. (1994). Indian population decline: The missions of northwestern New Spain, 1687–1840. University of New Mexico Press. Jackson, R. H., & Castillo, E. (1995). Indians, Franciscans, and Spanish colonization: The impact of the mission system on California Indians. University of New Mexico Press. Johnson, J. R. (1997). The Indians of Mission San Fernando. Southern California Quarterly, 79(3), 249-290. Kelsey, H. (1976). A new look at the founding of old Los Angeles. California Historical Quarterly, 55(4), 326–339. Kessell, J. L. (2002). Spain in the Southwest: A narrative history of colonial New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and California. University of Oklahoma Press. Kimbro, E. E., Costello, J. G., & Ball, T. (2009). The California missions: History, art, and preservation. Getty Conservation Institute. Larson, D. O., Johnson, J. R., & Michaelsen, J. C. (1994). Missionization among the coastal Chumash of central California: A study of risk minimization strategies. American Anthropologist, 96(2), 263–299.