He was killing time in that singular way that’s so delicious when you get to live in your favorite city, when even boredom can feel diverting and luxurious.

The American West owed its existence—as an American West—to the federal government. And the federal government owed much of the legitimacy and authority it assumed during the nineteenth century to the American West.

What a demented doctrine, that man is born evil; how cruel it is. It’s not found in Judaism; Paul made it up to explain the Crucifixion. To make sense out of Christ’s death, which in fact makes no sense.

Spanish colonizers, and later their Mexican and American counterparts, drastically underestimated and misinterpreted the depth of complexity and sophistication of Indigenous Californian societies.