The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream (Paperback)

~ (Author) "A less likely terminus of all these journeys could scarcely have been conceived..." (more)
Key Phrases: gold discovery, vigilance committee, San Francisco, New York, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Texas A&M University professor H.W. Brands enhances his reputation as one of America's great popular historians with The Age of Gold, which tells the story of the California gold rush through rollicking narrative and intelligent analysis. "James Marshall's discovery of gold at Coloma [in 1848] turned out to be a seminal event in history, one of those rare moments that divide human existence into before and after," he writes. It launched "the most astonishing mass movement of people since the Crusades" and "helped initiate the modern era of American economic development." Brands describes how thousands of people from all over the world hazarded the journey, faced the scientific challenge of extracting precious metal from the earth, and finally struggled "to sink roots" where so many came merely "to strip the land." This book is something of a departure for Brands, who most recently has written biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt (both of them excellent). Yet he tackles this new topic with confidence, telling dozens of stories about John Fremont, Leland Stanford, and less famous forty-niners. He concludes by describing why these tales have a national and even global importance. The Age of Gold is magnificent in its sweep, and not to be missed by fans of American history. --John Miller --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

The gold rush of 1848, says Brands, was a watershed in American history, helping mold the country into its modern shape, transforming the wilderness and pushing the country into civil war. Noted biographer Brands (his life of Benjamin Franklin, The First American, was a Pulitzer finalist) makes good use of a sparkling cast of characters: George Hearst, Leland Stanford, Levi Strauss, even William "War Is Hell" Sherman, all raced to California to make their fortunes. For most of the hundreds of thousands who flocked to California, though, life in the mines of the Sierras was hard and rarely paid off. Yet the hopeful kept coming not only from the East but from around the world, with profound implications for California and the rest of the country. The question of statehood would California be a slave state or free? accelerated the onset of the Civil War, says Brands. He believes the gold rush changed the national psyche, pulling the country away from a Puritan ethic of "steadiness and frugality" and toward a new American dream of "instant wealth," the fruits of "boldness and luck." With solid research and a sprightly narrative, Brands's portrait of the gold rush is an enlightening analysis of a transformative period for California and America.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 592 pages
• Publisher: Anchor (October 14, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385720882
• ISBN-13: 978-0385720885
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #247,133 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wins the Gold, September 17, 2002

By	Brian D. Rubendall (Oakton, VA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream (Hardcover)

H.W. Brands shows again why he is one of America's foremost historians with his compellingly readable account of the 1849 California Gold Rush and the early history of the state. Brands digs down through the myths about the Gold Rush and unearths the fascinating stories of the people (immigrants and Americans alike) who caught America's first big burst of gold fever. Among the key players were William T. Sherman (later the famous Civil War General), explorer John C. Fremont (later the first Presidential nominee of the Republican Party), and Leland Stanford (founder of the University that bears his last name). They all come together at what was truly one of American history's major crossroads.

Brands does not limit himself to just recounting the adventures in the gold fields. He focusses on the larger political, social and even military effects of the gold rush. The chapters recounting the lengthy, perilous journeys by land and sea that the gold miners took to get to Califorinia are particularly compelling. Brands also discusses at length the growth of San Francisco into a major city and the establishment of California's state government. Additionally, he devotes time examining the U.S. congresional Compromise of 1850, which allowed California to be admitted as a state only after a bitter and acrimonious sectional feud over slavery.

Brands is an excellent writer with that rare ability among historians to make his historicals accounts read like fiction. His book is well-researched and the author has a flair for capturing the essence of the historical figures involved. He also argues strenuously that the gold rush's effects on American politics as a whole, including pushing the country toward Civil War, should not be underestimated.

Overall, an outstanding work of history that can be enjoyed by serious students and casual readers alike.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Highly readable and informative, August 28, 2002

By	David J. Loftus (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream (Hardcover)

This kind of larger scale canvas is a bit of a switch for Teddy Roosevelt and Ben Franklin biographer H.W. Brand, a history prof at Texas A&M. Yet he has turned out a smooth and accessible work on the process and possible long-term effects of the California gold rush.

Brand manages a fine mix of the larger view -- statistics, maps of larger immigration movements, etc. -- with storylines of various specific characters, from the familiar (General William Sherman and John Fremont), to the vaguely familiar (Leland Stanford and the actual discoverer of gold at Sutter's Mill, James Marshall), to the unknown (fortune hunters and settlers who chronicled their trips across the western prairies as well as from Australia, France, and China). Although the Chinese experience still gets short shrift, Brand has chosen some terrific characters (and decent writers) from other foreign lands to tell their stories.

This book also makes very clear how hard a time most people had of it. Brand describes in detail the effort of crossing the raw continent, the many human and animal carcasses that fell by the wayside (or succumbed to violence), and the arduous physical process of extracting precious metals from the earth until industrialization took over that work too.

One of the more eye-opening sections for me was the description of how many fires -- big, devastating ones -- San Francisco suffered in the 1840s and 1850s.

In trying to make a case for the larger and long-term effects of the gold rush (impressive shifts of world population, the decline of the Native American west due largely to the railroads), Brand gets a little far afield from California's gold fields toward the end of the book, but the text is always interesting and very readable.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A History of California Dreaming and Its Impact on a Nation, October 30, 2002

By	Scott Snyder (Northern California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream (Hardcover)

This is the story of the California Gold Rush, its impact on the American people then and now, and its contribution to the Civil War and the ultimate forging of the American nation.

Like his biography of Franklin, "The First American," Brands presents history in an engaging manner that allows the reader to imagine vividly conditions and lives in times gone-by. He brings history to life.

The narrative follows from the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill and the mass, world-wide movement of humanity to California to the settling of San Francisco, the rush to statehood and the Compromise of 1850.

The core significance of the book for me wasn't so much about the gold, as about the debates and mounting animosities between slave and free states back east as California sought admission; and about how California, and the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads united a country on the East-West axis, even as the Civil War was forging a new union between North and South.

As Brands presents them, Leland Stanford and William Tecumseh Sherman are as large in the union of East and West as Lincoln and Grant are in uniting North and South. Stanford as the first Republican governor of California met with Lincoln - the "rail-splitter" and former railroad attorney. Grant and Sherman worked together in the war, but before then, Sherman was a banker in San Francisco, commuting between New York and the West coast.

From California gold, the narrator follows the prospectors into Nevada and its silver mines. Brands includes Mark Twain's observations on the silver bubble of that day. In a manner of speaking, Twain worked for a time as a stock analyst covering Nevada mining companies in very much the same way dot.com analysts operated in recent years. This was an inspired and fun piece to include - worth the price of admission itself.

The only disappointment with the book is the final chapters are a bit rushed. There is a very cursory discussion of the economics of gold and a denouement in describing the futures of the main players in the story, most of whom - like Sutter - ended their days poor and broken men.

If you are interested in the further development of San Francisco and the west, I recommend picking up Gray Brechin's "Imperial San Francisco." That work includes aspects of the California story that Brands does not, e.g., why Fremont named the gate, the "Golden Gate," and a discussion of the economic and environmental impact of hydraulic mining.

In the main, this is an important and entertaining look at the Gold Rush and the lives of the people who took a part in the event. Highly recommended.