1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910459736603321

Autore

Fetherling George <1949->

Titolo

The gold crusades : a social history of gold rushes, 1849-1929 / / Douglas Fetherling

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Toronto, Ontario ; ; Buffalo, New York ; ; London, England : , : University of Toronto Press, , 1997

©1997

ISBN

1-4426-5998-X

1-4426-5539-9

Edizione

[Revised edition.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (231 p.)

Collana

Heritage

Disciplina

338.2/741/09

Soggetti

Gold mines and mining - History

Gold mines and mining - Social aspects

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (pages [193]-197) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction: Gold Crusaders -- 1. The California Delusion -- 2. The Crown and the Southern Cross -- 3. To the Ends of the Empire -- 4. Silver into Gold -- 5. Titans in South Africa -- 6. The Rand and Western Australia -- 7. Many Roads to Dawson -- 8. Climax and Retreat -- 9. Last Stands -- L'Envoi -- Notes -- Essay on Sources -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

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 participants from around the world. A South African named P.J. Marais was one of them. Marais too returned home in defeat - only to set in motion the diamond and gold rushes that transformed southern Africa. And so it went.Most previous historians of the gold rushes have tended to view them as acts of spontaneous nationalism. Each country likes to see its own gold rush as the one that either shaped those that followed or epitomized all the rest. InThe Gold Crusades: A Social History of Gold Rushes, 1849-1929, Douglas



Fetherling takes a different approach.Fetherling argues that the gold rushes in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa shared the same causes and results, the same characters and characteristics. He posits that they were in fact a single discontinuous event, an expression of the British imperial experience and nineteenth-century liberalism. He does so with dash and style and with a sharp eye for the telling anecdote, the out-of-the-way document, and the bold connection between seemingly unrelated disciplines.Originally published by Macmillan of Canada, 1988.