It has often been said that modern California was born "suddenly" and full-formed after the discovery of gold in 1848. This important collection of writing, however, convincingly demonstrates that its roots go back almost a century earlier. A World Transformed gathers together the writings of early European explorers, missionaries, sea captains, and other visitors, from the first Spaniards to glimpse San Francisco Bay in 1769 to the eve of the gold rush. In fifteen literate accounts by Father Juan Crespi, George Vancouver, Richard Henry Dana, Edwin Bryant, and others, the transformation of San Francisco (and by extension, all of California) unfolds before us. A land of bountiful and open meadows, oak woodlands, plentiful game, and countless distinct groups of native people becomes dominated by a Spanish mission and presidio. A Mexican town grows up and eventually becomes a small city inhabited largely by Bostonians and other Anglo merchants, engaged in trade with the Clipper ships of the East Coast. Modern California emerges, not suddenly but perhaps inevitably.