Customer Reviews

American Alchemy: The California Gold Rush and Middle-Class Culture (Cultural Studies of the United States)

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Full of interesting, charming, and humorous anecdotes gathered from letters and diaries, Roberts accomplishes the elusive task of making history informative and entertaining. Roberts repudiates the notion that the forty-niners were predominately working-class folk, explaining instead that most forty-niners were actually of middle-class origin (pointing out that the trip to California was expensive). These middle-class forty-niners, Roberts illustrates, joined the gold rush as a "rebellion against certain middle-class values; this revolt, in turn, was largely carried out by middle-class individuals." The gold rush provided an escape for those who sought freedom from the confines of Victorian mores.

Few books have as much to teach about the history of Californians or the United States. I recommend American Alchemy highly to anyone interested in innovative books about American history and culture.

so, the other book called "american alchemy" is a comprehensive history of the "movers and shakers of the solid waste industry in America." coincidence? probably not

I met this so-called Professor Brian Roberts in college once, and let me tell you, HE'S A TOTAL CRACKPOT!!! He tried assigning sections of his award winning book to me in a pop culture class and I barely read it, because I know a thing or two about "sticking it to the man."

'Cause that's all that history classes and professors teach you - The rich guys were all right and the poor guys were all wrong, or the women were all right and the men were all wrong and the men still got away with it and do today!

We all know that 49ers are just a football team in a town full of gays. They even passed up Matt Leinart! So in conclusion, poor, nomadic speculators with nothing to lose were the real ones to do the gold rush. They truly are tales of "rags to riches" and the pioneering capitialist spirit in the 19th century. c'mon.