Roger Williams Lotchin is Emeritus Professor in the Department of History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he taught for almost 50 years. He is specialist in US home front studies and war and urban society, and the author of numerous books and articles, including Fortress California, 1910–1961: From Warfare to Welfare (1992), The Bad City in the Good War: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Oakland, and San Diego (2003), and San Francisco, 1846–1856: From Hamlet to City (1974).