Free Kindle The Rush: America's Fevered Quest For Fortune, 1848-1853 ebooks Download
A riveting portrait of the Gold Rush, by the award-winning author of Down the Great Unknown and The Forger's Spell.In the spring of 1848, rumors began to spread that gold had been discovered in a remote spot in the Sacramento Valley. A year later, newspaper headlines declared "Gold Fever!" as hundreds of thousands of men and women borrowed money, quit their jobs, and allowed themselves- for the first time ever-to imagine a future of ease and splendor. In THE RUSH, Edward Dolnick brilliantly recounts their treacherous westward journeys by wagon and on foot, and takes us to the frenzied gold fields and the rowdy cities that sprang from nothing to jam-packed chaos. With an enthralling cast of characters and scenes of unimaginable wealth and desperate ruin, THE RUSH is a fascinating-and rollicking-account of the greatest treasure hunt the world has ever seen.
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1St Edition edition (August 12, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0316175684
ISBN-13: 978-0316175685
Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.2 x 9.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #476,977 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #56 in Books > Business & Money > Industries > Energy & Mining > Natural Resource Extraction #535 in Books > History > World > Expeditions & Discoveries #1254 in Books > Business & Money > Biography & History > Economic History
While subtitled "A new history of the Gold Rush," this might more accurately be termed a modern rewriting of classic Gold Rush literature--it isn't in the vein of several revisionist histories addressing the social norms of the day, the genocide of California Indians, or the economics of the Gold Rush (all of which are well addressed in the series of books Orsi coedited from UC Press in late 1990s). This very much follows in the vein of The World Rushed In, integrating numerous diaries and letters to convey the arc of travels to and in California along the two primary routes used by American argonauts, the overland California Trail and the sea route across the Isthmus of Panama to the end of the main period of placer mining, taken here as 1853. If you've read extensively of this literature before, you may find little new here (cholera: check, graves on the trail: check, malaria and sea sickness: check and check, didn't get much gold: check), but for those only somewhat familiar or unfamiliar with this event, this is a fine introduction to a period of American history usually lost to modern schoolchildren as history classes emphasize the march to the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution over the 1850s.A key for any author attempting a volume like this is to key on the diarists and letter writers who can provide the most compelling stories, and Dolnick chooses well. He uses the well-known diaries of Israel (aka Isaac) Lord and Joseph Bruff and complements them with the writings of Alonzo Delano, Jennie Megquir and Luzena Wilson. Arguably the greatest pleasure in reading this book is to follow the two women within what was overwhelmingly a male flood; this probably is what most distinguishes this book from others of its ilk.
The Rush: America's Fevered Quest for Fortune, 1848-1853 Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head (Rush of Blood to the Head Pvg) Franz Liszt, Vol. 2: The Weimar Years, 1848-1861 Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848-1868 The Training Ground: Grant, Lee, Sherman, and Davis in the Mexican War 1846-1848 Phantom Terror: Political Paranoia and the Creation of the Modern State, 1789 - 1848 The House of Rothschild: Volume 1: Money's Prophets: 1798-1848 Algonquin Spring: An Algonquin Quest Novel (An Algonguin Quest Novel) I Am Algonquin: An Algonquin Quest Novel (An Algonguin Quest Novel) Elephant Quest Elephant Quest (Adventures Around the World) Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America Freaks of Fortune: The Emerging World of Capitalism and Risk in America Fortune: The Art of Covering Business Amos Fortune, Free Man Stars of Fortune: Guardians Trilogy, Book 1 The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food Amos Fortune, Free Man (Newbery Library, Puffin) The Boy Who Fell Off the Mayflower, or John Howland's Good Fortune Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China Fortune-Telling Birthday Book
