The San Francisco Bay Area—An Environmental History With David D. Schmidt
About this episode
The episode features a discussion on the environmental history of the San Francisco Bay Area with David D. Schmidt.
Over the past four centuries, the transformation of the Greater San Francisco Bay Region has been extraordinary. What was once a near paradise for a few hundred thousand indigenous First Peoples is now home to nearly 8 million whose accumulated activities since the arrival of Europeans have created an industrialized landscape interspersed with large areas of open space where nature is in recovery. How did this happen? Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with David D. Schmidt, who spent two decades writing San Francisco Bay Area—An Environmental History, published by Back Country Press in 2025, and which is this year's winner of the California Book Awards Gold Medal for Contributions to Publishing. The book is a magisterial tome addressing virtually every aspect of SF Bay and its environmental transformation over the past 400 years. And learn how Alfred Hitchcock got the idea for his classic film “The Birds.”
People in this episode
Host: Ronnie Lipschutz
Guest: David D. Schmidt
Topics covered
- environmental history
- San Francisco Bay Area
- indigenous peoples
- industrialization
- nature recovery
Keywords
- environmental history
- San Francisco Bay
- indigenous peoples
- California Book Awards
- nature recovery
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Back Country Press
Books & works: The Birds
Places: San Francisco Bay Area
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