history was not the Gold Rush or the coming of the railroad. It was World War 11. In 1940, the federal government spent a mere $728 million in California, much of it simply to relieve economic hardship caused by the lingering Great Depression. But after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, California became a vast staging area for the Pacific war zone, with San Diego and San Francisco as ports of embarkation. The climate proved ideal for testing airplanes and training troops. The...