The Age of Gold

This history follows the California gold discovery of 1848 at Sutter's mill on the American River and the rush that followed, from overland and sea migrations through the Sierra camps to California's rapid statehood. Brands tracks prospectors, merchants, and politicians, including John and Jessie Fremont and later railroad men such as Leland Stanford, and he links the new state's free-soil admission to the sectional crisis that led toward civil war. The narrative runs on to the transcontinental railroad. The book is a political and social history of the rush, not a geology text and not a single biography.

Bound in black cloth title embossed in gilt on cover and spine. Frontispiece and 24 pages of colour and black & white plates. Map endpapers printed gold on black. Gold page tops. Black slipcase.