Despite where it appears on the map, Berkeley is not quite in the United States. With a distinct culture and a history all its own, it has long deserved a guidebook worthy of it, and that's the volume you are holding in your hands. For years, those lucky enough to have taken Pamela Gleason's legendary walking tours of this unique city have wanted its essence preserved in print, and now we have it.

This is not a conventional guidebook, giving restaurants different numbers of stars and classifying hotels by their degree of luxury. That, you can find elsewhere. This is a guide to more important things, going back in history to the days when our beloved city was inhabited by the Ohlone people, and Europeans thought California was an island. (They were not entirely wrong about that: this is not a state like its neighbors.) It's a book that will tell you about Berkeleyans you've heard about, from Robert Oppenheimer to Dorothea Lange, and about those you didn't know, like Lois the Pie Queen.

-Excerpt from the Foreward by Adam Hochschild