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The kings of Spain brought us the conquistadores and masters, whose footprints remained in the circular land grants assigned to those searching for gold in the sands of rivers, an abusive and shameful form of exploitation, traces of which can be noted from the air in many places around the country.

Most of the fiction on the California Gold Rush makes it sound like one grand, boyish adventure. However, when you read the real history, you realize that it wasn't that way at all.

I've found numerous things - settlements, temples, possible pyramids, forts, roads - the list goes on and on. I'm not as interested in the discoveries as the types of questions they help us formulate.

My first biography was 'Our Golda: The Life of Golda Meir.' To research that book, I bought a 1905 set of encyclopedias. Those books told me what each of the places Golda Meir lived in were like when she lived there.

Researching and writing about the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897-98 was one of the most exciting and involving projects I've undertaken.

The construction of extensive railways, however, and particularly the consolidation of small, experimental lines into large systems, dates from the days of the discovery of gold in California.

I was surprised at how cosmopolitan the Gold Rush was: prospectors were of all races, genders, and countries. I was equally surprised at how fast gold prospecting became big business.

I have always been obsessed with America, the geography, the history, and, of course, the music. I've been lucky enough to have travelled through the country a lot, and, in a kind of anorak way, I've noted which states I've visited and which ones I've been to most often and all that sort of detail.

I didn't know much about Texas when I moved there for graduate school. In my first or second semester, I took a class in life and literature of the Southwest, and that's where I first heard about these events along the border in 1915-1918, what Anglos called the Bandit Wars.

I've always been fascinated by the Gold Coast. The homes themselves are spectacular, unlike anything you'll see other than in Newport, Bar Harbor or Palm Beach. It's a very special area that, because of local demographics, is not going to survive much longer.