Join author and historian Sandra Bonura in conversation online on her new book, The Sugar King of California: The Life of Claus Spreckels.
The Sugar King of California is the astonishingly intimate story of one of the most controversial entrepreneurs of the 19th century - a rule-breaking visionary who through his sugar empire became one of the richest Americans in history alongside John D. Rockefeller, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates. Bonura tells the rags-to-riches story of Spreckels’s role in the developments of the sugarcane industry in the American West and across the Pacific, triumphing in a milieu rife with cronyism and corruption and ultimately transforming California’s industry & labor. But there’s always a cost for single-minded determination; the legendary family quarrels even included a murder charge. Spreckels’s biography is one of business triumph & tragedy, a portrait of a family torn apart by money, jealousy, and ego.
Historian Dr. Sandra Bonura is a retired professor who is busy on her second career resurrecting the forgotten stories of overlooked historical figures. She is a frequent storyteller and lecturer on the importance of using a multitude of primary sources to gain perspective on historical events. Sandee is an award winning author of eight published works based on found archival treasures: The Sugar King of California: The Life of Claus Spreckels, Prairie to Prosperity: The Life of Henry G. Fenton, Empire Builder: John D. Spreckels and the Making of San Diego, Light in The Queen's Garden: Ida May Pope, Pioneer for Hawai'i's Daughters, Queen Lili'uokalani's Beloved Kawaiaha'o Seminary, Lydia K. Aholo—Her Story, Recovering the Lost Voice, and An American Girl in the Hawaiian Islands: Letters of Carrie Prudence Winter 1890-1893.
