Seeking a Global History of Gold

This essay focuses on several characteristics central to a global history of nineteenth-century gold rushes: the accelerated mobility of goods, people, and ideas caused by overlapping rushes; the redistributive power of gold-rush gateways; the transition from alluvial to capital-intensive corporate mining; and the shift in technologies and labor regimes that accompanied these thickening transnational networks. Acting in tandem with these processes of global connection and redistribution were a series of powerful counter-currents: the destruction of indigenous communities, the erection and policing of material and mental frontiers from threatening “others,” the protracted consolidation of capital and elaboration of class hierarchies and the rapid but long-term loss of ecological sustainability.