Claus Spreckels (1828-1908) emigrated from his homeland of Germany to the United States with only seventy-five cents in his pocket, built a sugar empire, and became one of the richest Americans in history. Migrating to San Francisco after the gold rush, Spreckels built the largest sugar beet factory of its kind in the United States. When Spreckels gave America its first sugar cube, he became the “Sugar King.”

The indomitable Spreckels was a colorful and complicated character on both sides of the Pacific. A kingpin in the development of the Hawai‘i-California sugarcane industry, he wielded a clenched fist over Hawai‘i’s economy for nearly two decades after occupying a position of unrivaled power and political influence with the Hawaiian monarchy, while also advancing major technology developments on the islands. The Sugar King’s legacy continued as the Spreckels family developed large portions of California, building and breaking monopolies in agriculture, shipping, railroading, finance, real estate, horse breeding, utilities, streetcars, and water infrastructure, and building entire towns and cities from infrastructure to superstructure.

In The Sugar King of California Sandra E. 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. Spreckels’s biography is one of business triumph and tragedy, a portrait of a family torn apart by money, jealousy, and ego.

The book is published by University of Nebraska Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

"A well-organized, well-told, often fascinating story of a life." (Roundup Magazine)

"The best biography I've read in over 20 years." (Blaine DeSantis, booktrib.com)

“Sandra Bonura is the first biographer to give a heart and soul to Claus Spreckels, his era’s Musk.” (Vincent J. Dicks, author of Forsaken Kings)