The Gold Crusades: A Social History of Gold Rushes, 1849-1929Among 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. In The 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. |
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Contents
Gold Crusaders | 3 |
The California Delusion | 11 |
The Crown and the Southern Cross | 42 |
To the Ends of the Empire | 67 |
Silver into Gold | 82 |
Titans in South Africa | 94 |
The Rand and Western Australia | 105 |
Many Roads to Dawson | 124 |
Other editions - View all
The Gold Crusades: A Social History of Gold Rushes, 1849-1929 Douglas Fetherling Limited preview - 1997 |
The Gold Crusades: A Social History of Gold Rushes, 1849-1929 Douglas Fetherling,George Fetherling No preview available - 1997 |
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References to this book
Gamblers and Dreamers: Women, Men, and Community in the Klondike Charlene Porsild Limited preview - 1998 |
Bibliographic information
| Title | The Gold Crusades: A Social History of Gold Rushes, 1849-1929 Reprints in Canadian history |
| Authors | Douglas Fetherling, George Fetherling |
| Edition | revised |
| Publisher | University of Toronto Press, 1997 |
| ISBN | 0802080464, 9780802080462 |
| Length | 222 pages |
| Subjects | › › History / Modern / 19th Century |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |