Los Angeles has always been more than a city. It is a dream, a paradox, a restless experiment in what a metropolis can be. From its origins as a Spanish pueblo in 1781 to its rise as a twenty-first century global capital, Los Angeles has reinvented itself time and again-mission town, rancho empire, Gold Rush outpost, citrus paradise, oil boomtown, aerospace hub, dream factory, and digital frontier. This sweeping narrative traces the dramatic story of Los Angeles across centuries of transformation: the founding pobladores who carved a village out of desert, the Californio rancheros and American settlers who battled over land, the immigrants who built neighborhoods into global enclaves, the riots that exposed the city's deepest wounds, and the cultural renaissances that turned its contradictions into creativity. From missions and railroads to Hollywood and Silicon Beach, from Watts to Koreatown, from Olympic spectacles to smog alerts, Los Angeles emerges as the ultimate city of reinvention-messy, luminous, contradictory, and endlessly fascinating. Written in a vivid, evocative style, Los Angeles: From Sacred Valley to Global Metropolis invites readers to walk its boulevards, breathe its smog and salt air, and listen to the many voices that have shaped its story. This is not just the history of a city-it is the story of America's future, told through its most dazzling and difficult metropolis.