San Diego: An Introduction to the Region. Edited by
Philip R. Pryde. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1976.
Illustrations. Index. Maps. 267 pages. $6.95.
Reviewed by Robert W. Durrenberger, Director of the Laboratory
of Climatology, Arizona State University, author of California: Patterns on
the Land, and other books on California.
The San Diego area has been a magnet that has attracted many
visitors since the landing of the Spaniards in 1769. Some who have come to visit
have been so attracted that they have lingered on and become San Diegans.
Others, less fortunate, return at every opportunity to walk the ocean beaches,
visit the zoo, and eat in the many fine restaurants in the city of San Diego and
its suburbs. Most individuals enjoy the region without fully appreciating or
understanding the reasons that it is so attractive or in understanding how the
metropolitan area achieved its present forms or functions. Thus, both native San
Diegan and the visitor who returns often to the region will appreciate and
benefit from reading San Diego: An Introduction to the Region.
Although it was obviously prepared for students in classes in
the history and geography of San Diego, it is a book that many other individuals
will buy and peruse. It is not something that you will pick up and read cover to
cover, but, rather, is a reference book for the region. Are you interested in
learning more about the landforms of San Diego? Then read Chapter
Two—Geomorphology of San Diego County. Successive chapters inform you about
other facets of the natural and cultural environments, settlement patterns, natural
resources, urban development, and about problems of maintaining the quality of
the physical environment and of planning for the future.
The book is well illustrated with photos, maps, and graphs.
Most of these serve their purposes well, but a few suffer from over-reduction,
being reproduced at a scale smaller than the cartographer intended them to be.
However, these are minor problems that can be corrected in another edition.
In general, the various chapters are well written, but the
book suffers somewhat from the same problems that plague all multiple-authored
texts. There is some overlap between certain chapters and the treatment accorded
the topics is uneven. As one example, there might have been a more extensive
early chapter on the evolution of the cultural landscape so that the chapters on
agriculture, mining, etc., could have been devoted to the modern
period. However, these are the choices that editors must make in
putting the work of a number of authors together in one volume, and, all in all,
Pryde has done a good job of unifying the text so that it tells the story of man
and nature along the Southern California Coastal Zone in a coherent manner.
And, as Pryde points out, the citizens of the region are
going to have to become informed and involved if they are to act in a positive
manner to keep San Diego an attractive place in which to live and to visit. For,
although San Diego is a region of sunshine, ocean beaches, museums, golf
courses, zoos, mountains, theatres, resorts, deserts and opportunities, it has
also become a region of smog, unemployment, inadequate transportation services,
and an overly enthusiastic human response to the amenities provided by man and
nature. Thus, it is essential that the citizens of San Diego learn to cope with
the many problems created by the vast influx of humanity into this beautiful and
historic region.
