NONFICTION - Feb. 8, 1987

BROKEN SHORE: THE MARIN PENINSULA IN CALIFORNIA HISTORY by Arthur Quinn (Redwood: $9.95, paperback; 184 pp.; illustrated). Located only two miles across water from San Francisco, Marin County was until the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge a dimension away, as Arthur Quinn’s book makes clear. It makes other things clear as well, and that is its triumph: Quinn not only retrieves Marin from Cyra McFadden’s satiric grasp but also provides significant observations about European expansion as he gracefully peels layers from the past.

Isolated by water and by its own mountainous topography, the Marin Peninsula managed to experience much of California’s--and the West’s--development writ small, and it enjoyed a remarkable cast of characters.

But Quinn does not dwell on characters. In fact, it is his ability to see significant if unobvious realities that distinguishes this brief volume. When local Indians first encountered whites, for instance, they believed they were viewing their dead generations, writes Quinn. “It was dead generations . . . but it was future death, not past. They were seeing face to face the extinction of their people.”

Quinn sees Marin as a microcosm, reflecting grand historical forces. His book allows readers to experience those forces in human terms.