Mining California: An Ecological History [Paperback]

Andrew C. Isenberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 25, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0809069326 | ISBN-13: 978-0809069323 | Edition: 1st

An environmental History of California during the Gold Rush

Between 1849 and 1874 almost $1 billion in gold was mined in California. With little available capital or labor, here’s how: high-pressure water cannons washed hillsides into sluices that used mercury to trap gold but let the soil wash away; eventually more than three times the amount of earth moved to make way for the Panama Canal entered California’s rivers, leaving behind twenty tons of mercury every mile—rivers overflowed their banks and valleys were flooded, the land poisoned. In the rush to wealth, the same chain of foreseeable consequences reduced California’s forests and grasslands.

Not since William Cronon’s Nature’s Metropolis has a historian so skillfully applied John Muir’s insight—“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe”—to the telling of the history of the American West. Beautifully told, this is western environmental history at its finest.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Isenberg's densely written text provides an overview of the industrialization of mining, logging, ranching and agriculture in California between 1850 and 1900 that, while well researched and exceedingly informative, assumes a greater familiarity with North American and California history than most readers are likely to have. However, Isenberg provides a perspective almost entirely missing from other history texts, showing how our forebears' environmental decisions continue to affect our lives. He examines how technologies developed to mine the gold deposits of the Sierra Nevada, to log the redwoods of the Northwest coast and to develop the Central Valley into a productive agricultural region caused profound environmental changes that altered the course of industrialization and politics. Of particular interest is the role that hydraulic mining played in starting the "water wars" that have pervaded Western politics for the past 150 years. He makes a strong case that California, rapidly industrialized before any other Western state, set the model for industrial development in the American West. Most interestingly, he compares the sequestration of Native Americans in reservations and the rise of industrial-scale agriculture to the enclosure of British commons in preceding centuries. The extensive bibliography is rich in primary source material, and the text is thoroughly footnoted. This is not a book for the general reader; rather, it is best suited for an upper-division or graduate-level seminar course.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“Superbly written. This excellent read, a model for future studies, deserves highest recommendations.” —D. Steeples, Choice; An Outstanding Academic Title

“As entertaining as it is insightful, Isenberg's book does justice to the dramatic ecological transformations California underwent in the half century after the Gold Rush. This is environmental history at its best.” —J. R. McNeill, author of Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World

“Andrew Isenberg's superb new book analyzes the ecological domino effect set in motion by the California Gold Rush, which touched off the cycles of environmental degradation the scale of which we can only now fully appreciate. Filled with lessons and warnings, Mining California is a timely and important book.” —William Deverell, Director, Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West

“The book offers a mother lode of descriptions of the sheer scale of projects undertaken, and a keen portrait of the ecological domino effect of new industries…. At a time when the state’s residency has been forecast to grow by 13 million in the next 25 years, with its population probably stretching into its farthest regions, Mining California offers sobering reading on the consequences of unchecked expansion.” —San Francisco Chronicle

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Hill and Wang; 1st edition (July 25, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809069326
• ISBN-13: 978-0809069323
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #630,337 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars downstream was a bad place to be, June 29, 2007

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W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mining California: An Ecological History (Paperback)

Some 15 years ago, Marc Reisner came out with a surprisingly well received book, Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition. It described how the American West developed via huge government subsidies for dams and water distribution systems. Isenberg's recent book can be understood as a useful supplement to Reisner. He focuses on California since the Gold Rush days of 1849. Describing how $1 billion in gold was extracted at tremendous expenditure of labour and capital. With an emphasis on the literally downstream cost.

The huge use of water to wash away hills containing gold meant silted runoffs that adversely affected agriculture and wildlife depending on that water. Worse yet was the use of mercury to process the gold ore. The mercury contaminated effluent was discharged with little or no attempt at remediation.

Yes, the benefits of the Gold Rush were far reaching. It built up California's population and the industrial and agricultural base. But there were costs often neglected in standard histories of the time.

The take home message is that downstream was a bad place to be.