Publisher's Synopsis
This work provides a reassessment of gold rushes in California, USA and Victoria, Australia in the middle of the 19th century.;Goodman sets out to look beyond the mechanics of digging for gold, beyond the fortunes and failures that are the stuff of most histories of this time, to the meanings which these tumultuous social events had for the societies which experienced them. These were times which threatened established values of home and society, of family life, religion and the Protestant work ethic.
