Richard Walker is Professor of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught for 35 years. Walker has written on a diverse range of topics in economic, urban and environmental geography, and has scores of published articles to his credit. In addition to The Atlas of California, he is co-author of The Capitalist Imperative (1989) and The New Social Economy (1992), and has written extensively on California, including The Conquest of Bread (2004) andThe Country in the City (2007).

Walker has served as Chair of the Geography Department, the Global Metropolitan Studies Center and the California Studies Center at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as chairing the statewide California Studies Association. He is the recipient of several prestigious grants, including Fulbright and Guggenheim Fellowships, as well as prizes such as the Carey McWilliams Award for California Studies, a Distinguished Teaching Award and the Hal Rothman Prize in Western History for The Country in the City.