Description
Book SynopsisNothing set the world in motion like gold. Between the discovery of California placer gold in 1848 and the rush to Alaska fifty years later, the search for the precious yellow metal accelerated worldwide circulations of people, goods, capital, and technologies.A Global History of Gold Rushesbrings together historians of the United States, Africa, Australasia, and the Pacific World to tell the rich story of these nineteenth century gold rushes from a global perspective. Gold was central to the growth of capitalism: it whetted the appetites of empire builders, mobilized the integration of global markets and economies, profoundly affected the environment, and transformed large-scale migration patterns. Together these essays tell the story of fifty years that changed the world.
Trade Review"This collection moves the study of migration, finance, and technology forward in consistently strong essays that are as readable as they are informative." * H-Net *
"This book is a welcome contribution, opening agendas for future research in many dimensions of mining history, and reminding exponents of any one national mining history against undue exceptionalism." * Australian Historical Studies *
"This excellent book provides a needed international perspective on gold rush histories. . . . The international perspective, and the explanation of the linkages among the gold rushes, make this book valuable for researchers of any of the individual gold rushes, of the political and financial histories of the countries involved, and of colonial history." * Journal of American History *
"The essays provide in-depth coverage of topics not typically discussed and help readers better understand the continuities and differences that distinguished the far-flung gold rushes of this period." * California History *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Preface
John Darwin and Jay Sexton Editors’ Acknowledgments
Timeline and Map: Selected Nineteenth-Century
Gold Rushes
part one
global transformations in
the age of gold
1 • Seeking a Global History of Gold
Benjamin Mountford and Stephen Tuff nell 2 • California, Coincidence, and Empire
Elliott West part two
settler societies and gold
rush democracy
3 • Gold and the Public in the Nineteenth-Century
Gold Rushes
David Goodman 4 • The Pacific Gold Rushes and the Struggle
for Order
Benjamin Mountford 5 • The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and
Global Politics, 1849–1910
Mae M. Ngai part three
finance, speculation, and
the economics of gold rushes
6 • Frenzied Finance: Gold Mining in the Globalizing
South, circa 1886–1896
Ian Phimister 7 • Dreams of a “Johannesburg of West Africa”: The Gold
Coast’s Moment in the Imperial Rush for Gold
Cassandra Mark-Thiesen 8 • Creating a Global Industry? Geology, Capital, and
Company Formation on the Goldfields of the Industrial Age
Erik Eklund part four
expertise, the environment,
and mining technologies
9 • The Real Wealth of the World: Hydraulic Mining
and the Environment in the Circum-Pacific Goldfields
Andrew C. Isenberg 10 • Engineering Gold Rushes: Engineers and the Mechanics
of Global Connectivity
Stephen Tuffnell 11 • Grounding Capitalism: Geology, Labor, and the Nome
Gold Rush
Bathsheba Demuth Select Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index
