A Global History of Gold Rushes (California World History Library Book 25)

Nothing 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 Rushes__ brings 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. "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 histories have emphasized the role of gold rushes as accelerants of state formation, crucibles of national character, and watersheds of political development, the essays in Gold Rush begin from a different premise. They explore gold rushes as connected phenomena and emphasize the destructive power of the search for gold on indigenous communities and the environment, and their role as incubators of racial hierarchy and immigration restriction. The essays in Gold Rush showcase the best and most current research methodologies in global history - comparative, environmental, and transnational - to address these concerns. Gold Rush uses diverse themes and places as vantage points on the nineteenth century gold rushes - from the catalytic effect of the discovery of California placer gold in 1848 to the nostalgic rush to the beaches of Nome, Alaska, fifty years later; from anxious commentators discussing the public good and disorder of gold mining in Georgia, California, and Victoria to the worldwide discussion of the "Chinese Question" and the productivity of non-white labor in Africa; from the assertion of corporate control over lode mining to the destructive environmental and financial consequences of that control. At the heart of this book is the paradoxical power of gold rushes to connect and divide, to enrich and impoverish, to create and destroy"--Provided by publisher. Contents List of Illustrations Preface 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 2. California, Coincidence, and Empire Part Two. Settler Societies and Gold Rush Democracy 3. Gold and the Public in the Nineteenth-Century Gold Rushes 4. The Pacific Gold Rushes and the Struggle for Order 5. The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics, 1849–1910 Part Three. Finance, Speculation, and the Economics of Gold Rushes 6. Frenzied Finance: Gold Mining in the Globalizing South, circa 1886–1896 7. Dreams of a “Johannesburg of West Africa”: Th e Gold Coast’s Moment in the Imperial Rush for Gold 8. Creating a Global Industry? Geology, Capital, and Company Formation on the Goldfields of the Industrial Age 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 10. Engineering Gold Rushes: Engineers and the Mechanics of Global Connectivity 11. Grounding Capitalism: Geology, Labor, and the Nome Gold Rush Select Bibliography List of Contributors Index Nothing 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 Rushes brings 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.