(259) pp, 9 1/2" H. B&w photographs, maps. "The first great international gold rush began in 1849 after news about spectacular discoveries in California leaked out to the rest of the world, setting off one of the largest peace-time migrations in history. The final one, using dog-teams as well as aircraft, took place in the wilderness of northwestern Ontario in the Roaring Twenties, when corporate manoeuvring had nearly eclipsed the fierce individualism so central to the idea of the gold rush. The period saw every type of person - saints and charlatans, nobles and peasants, plutocrats and radicals, Asians, Blacks and Europeans - racing off to the Rocky Mountains, Australia, South Africa or Alaska and the Yukon. As they gained cumulative force, the gold rushes produced certain stock characters: the happy-go-lucky millionaire, the golden-hearted prostitute, the aging veteran of some previous frontier search for one final fling. In every instance, the gold rush was not merely an anarchic type of economic development but a signal and informing event in the history of the host country. In nearly all cases, there was great tension between the forces of authority on the one hand and the miners' instinctual libertarianism on the other. Often the result was violence - followed by reform. (This book) throws new light on a popular subject and ties part of one country's history and folkore to that of the others." Small bump at each corner of boards, slight bump at top of spine, very light browning at bottom edge of spine. Dust jacket has wrinkling and light wear at top/bottom of spine and flap-folds, two tiny edge tears archivally taped.

Gold,  Gold  Mines,  Gold  Mining,  Alaska,  Australia,  Ballarat,  Victoria,  Barney  Barnato,  Bathurst,  New  South  Wales,  Bendigo,  Black  Hills,  Dakota  Territory,  Blacks,  Boers,  Boer  War,  Brazil,  British  Columbia,  California,  Cape  Colony,  Cariboo,  George  Washington  Carmack,  Chinese,  Cobalt,  Ontario,  Colorado,  Comstock  Lode,  Goolgardie,  Cripple  Creek,  Dawson,  Yukon  Territory,  Diamonds,  South  Africa,  Dome  Mines,  Durban,  Natal,  Dyea,  Edmonton,  Fraser  River,  Gambling,  Gold  Rushes,  Discoveries,  Hudson,  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  North  American  Indians,  Johannesburg,  Juneau,  Kalgoorlie,  Kimberley,  Klondike,  Fred  LaRose,  James  W.  Marshall,  Melbourne,  Native  Peoples,  Nevada,  New  Zealand,  Nome,  North-west  Mounted  Police,  William  Ogilvie,  Orange  Free  State,  Oregon,  Porcupine  Region,  Prize-Fighting,  Prostitution,  Queensland,  Red  Lake,  Cecil  Rhodes,  St.  Michael,  San  Francisco,  Seattle,  Silver,  Skagway,  South  Porcupine,  Sir  Samuel  Steele,  John  Augustus  Sutter,  Sydney,  Temiskiming,  Timmins,  Toronto,  Yukon  River,  Social  History,  19th  Century,  Early  20th  Century.