Global transformations in the age of gold -- Settler societies and gold rush democracy -- Finance, speculation, and the economics of gold rushes -- Expertise, the environment, and mining technologies "Nothing set the world in motion like gold. Gold rushes accelerated the global…
"Nothing set the world in motion like gold. Gold rushes accelerated the global circulation of people, goods, capital, and technologies that transformed settler societies around the world. Yet, they are rarely considered in a global perspective. While in the past national histori…
Among the hordes of starry-eyed 'argonauts' who flocked to the California gold rush of 1849 was an Australian named Edward Hargraves. He left America empty-handed, only to find gold in his own backyard. The result was the great Australian rush of the 1850s, which also attracted …
"During the nineteenth century tens of thousands of Chinese men and women crossed the Pacific to work, trade, and settle in California. Drawn initially by the gold rush, they took with them skills and goods and a view of the world which, though still Chinese, was transformed by …
""Now we have seen the Gold and seen the men who dig it, and are satisfied" - thus wrote an on-the-scene observer for American frontier newspapers in April 1858, confirming fabulous rumours about gold strikes in the British possessions. Waves of miners from the American West alr…
The burden of patriarchy -- The power of gold -- Angered spirits -- Polluted money -- Wealth and devotion -- Trading gold
"Mongolia over the last decade has seen a substantial and ongoing gold rush. The widespread mining of gold looks at first glance to be a blessing for a desperately poor and largely pastoralist country where people's lives were disrupted by the end of the USSR and tens of million…
Winner of the 2013 Man Booker Prize and Governor General's Award for Fiction, and set during the heady days of New Zealand's Gold Rush, The Luminaries is a magnificent novel of love, lust, murder, and greed, in which three unsolved crimes link the fates and fortunes of twelve me…
Tells the little-known story of this exploratory mission and reveals how it set the stage for the climactic Battle of the Little Bighorn two years later. What is the significance of this obscure foray into the Black Hills? The short answer, as the author explains, is that Custer…
Describes the adventurous prospectors who traversed the United States in 1848 in response to rumors of gold in the Sacramento Valley, detailing the rough and rowdy cities that popped up, seemingly out of thin air, to accommodate the treasure-seekers.
"Popular media depict miners as a rough and tumble lot who digently worked the placers along scenic rushing rivers while living in roaring mining camps in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Trafzer and Hyer destroy this mythic image by offering a collection of origina…