Anniversaries are a good time to publish local histories. Huntington Beach got Joe Santiago's Ebb & Flow for its centennial, for instance. Well, this month the City of Aliso Viejo turned 10, and sure enough, here comes a new book.
Images of America: Aliso Viejo by Bob Bunyan and the Aliso Viejo Community Foundation comes in at 128 pages, total. Of those, only 13 pages deal with that particular chunk of land from pre-historic times up through the 1960s. And of those 13 pages, almost half the space is taken up with modern images of Acjachemen village re-enactments.
Of the remaining 115 pages, 28 deal with the activities of the Mission Viejo Co. in the 1970s and 1980s. The rest of the book -- that is to say, the majority of the it -- deals with Aliso Viejo proper, from development in the 1980s and 1990s through today.
I'll leave it to you whether or not this counts as history yet. But if you love Orange County's newest city, and want a keepsake, this is your go-to book.