Now with a new design and updated content, including three brand-new chapters plus a new preface and a postscript from the author. An anything-but-dry history textbook in a take-it-with-you package, Washington’s History is a fascinating walk through the sweeping story of a place and its people. For centuries, the natural beauty and riches of the Northwest have excited the human imagination, from its first peoples to seafaring explorers, to westward-thinking pioneers, to technological thinkers and giants. A Washington resident himself, author Harry Ritter offers fifty-five vignettes illustrated with rare archival photographs that comprise an entertaining and informative picture of life in the Far Northwest. Learn about the Natives, explorers, traders, missionaries, loggers, farmers, inventors, and politicians. From Chief Seattle to Dr. John McLoughlin, William E. Boeing, Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos, these are the people at the epicenter of events that shaped the Evergreen State. Harry Ritter is Emeritus Professor of History at Western Washington University, where he taught from 1969 to 2010. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he received his doctorate in history from the University of Virginia. He is also the author of Alaska’s History: The People, Land, and Events of the North Country . He lives in Bellingham, Washington.