From the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of Our First Civil War—the epic story of the California Gold Rush, “a fine, robust telling of one of the greatest adventure stories in history" (David McCullough, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of John Adams). The California Gold Rush inspired a new American dream—the “dream of instant wealth, won by audacity and good luck.” The discovery of gold on the American River in 1848 triggered the most astonishing mass movement of peoples since the Crusades. It drew fortune-seekers from the ends of the earth, accelerated America’s imperial expansion, and exacerbated the tensions that exploded in the Civil War. H.W. Brands tells his epic story from multiple perspectives: of adventurers John and Jessie Fremont, entrepreneur Leland Stanford, and the wry observer Samuel Clemens—side by side with prospectors, soldiers, and scoundrels. He imparts a visceral sense of the distances they traveled, the suffering they endured, and the fortunes they made and lost. Impressive in its scholarship and overflowing with life, The Age of Gold is history in the grand traditions of Stephen Ambrose and David McCullough.

The discovery of gold in California in 1848 sparked a frenzy that shook the world. People swarmed to the gold fields from as far as China and Australia. They came by ship and overland, braving Tierra del Fuego and the pestilence of Panama, lured by the promise of riches. At the heart of The Age of Gold is the story of Captain John Fremont, the flamboyant adventurer who "liberated" California from Mexico, only to find himself accused of mutiny. Fremont met his match in young Jessie Benton, a headstrong, fiercely intelligent Senator's daughter. Together, John and Jessie Fremont would play a fateful role in the drama unfolding on the gold fields as they lurched, like so many others, from financial ruin to astonishing riches.

The discovery of gold by a team of Mormon mill workers in 1848 sparked a frenzy that shook the world. People swarmed to California from as far as China and Australia. They came from England and France, from Ireland and Chile, leaving behind their families and everything they owned in the hope of making their fortunes in the new world. They came by ship and overland, braving Tierra del Fuego and the pestilences of Panama, lured by the promise of gold. In a spellbinding narrative that spans several continents, Brands brings the fervour and excitement of the gold rush vividly to life. The Age of Gold is narrative history at its best -- the astonishing tale of one of the most extraordinary speculative frenzies in history, told by a master historian.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the world was ready to adopt the gold standard out of concerns of national power, prestige, and anti-English competition. Yet although the gold standard allowed countries to enact a virtual single world currency, the years before World War I were not a time of unfettered liberal economics and one-world, one-market harmony. Outside of Europe, the gold standard became a tool for nationalists and protectionists primarily interested in growing domestic industry and imperial expansion. This overlooked trend, provocatively reassessed in Steven Bryan's well-documented history, contradicts our conception of the gold standard as a British-based system infused with English ideas, interests, and institutions. In countries like Japan and Argentina, where nationalist concerns focused on infant-industry protection and the growth of military power, the gold standard enabled the expansion of trade and the goals of the age: industry and empire. Bryan argues that these countries looked less to Britain and more to North America and the rest of Europe for ideological models. Not only does this history challenge our idealistic notions of the prewar period, but it also reorients our understanding of the history that followed. Policymakers of the 1920s latched onto the idea that global prosperity before World War I was the result of a system dominated by English liberalism. Their attempt to reproduce this triumph helped bring about the global downturn, the Great Depression, and the collapse of the interwar world.

In his first book of non-fiction, originally published in 1962, Herbert Gold explores some not-so-happy problems confronting people in an age of "mass destruction, mass inertia, mass everything." While acknowledging that we live in a time of utmost global significance-war on an enormous scale was a reality of the twentieth century and continues to threaten, unadulterated evil has exhibited itself in grandiose proportions-Gold tackles issues and problems which are very much of significance to the individual: teaching, writing, love, marriage, divorce, and death. In The Age of Happy Problems, Gold takes the reader through a journey of eclectic characters, situations, and locales. Part I is a selection of essays entitled "American Events." In "The Age of Happy Problems" we are presented with an analysis of the problems facing people in the middle of their lives and careers. "How to Be an Artist's Wife" explores the prospect of being married, and remaining married, to a temperamental and egotistical artist. "Divorce as a Moral Act" describes the termination of marriage as a means for renewal and the chance to start over again the search for love. "The Bachelor's Dilemma" evokes the decisions confronting the male of the "big city." And "A Dog in Brooklyn, A Girl in Detroit: A L"ife Among the Humanities" is a memoir on the paradoxes of teaching in a university. Part II is entitled "American Places." The author examines in this section various American lifestyles. In "Paris: Notes from La Vie de Boheme," Gold describes Americans abroad, why they decide to become expatriates, and how they adapt to their new surroundings. In "Greenwich Village: The Changing Village" he writes about the importance of New York City's symbol of change, experiment and nonconformity. Finally, the author meditates on "Death in Miami Beach," offering a moving account of the relationship between death and the popular Florida city. Gold writes: "How can I total it up? What is the map of the map? Well, to begin with, Plato was wrong. The life of contemplation is not sufficient...and for another thing, Plato was right. He knew that men must learn to come together in the practice of intelligence and moral privilege." Gold's essays, stemming from the author's own humanity, are just as poignant and relevant today as they were when they were first published. The Age of Happy Problems is sure to captivate, but perhaps most of all, make the reader contemplate the importance of these issues for his or her own life.

Fields of Gold critically examines the history, ideas, and political struggles surrounding the financialization of farmland. In particular, Madeleine Fairbairn focuses on developments in two of the most popular investment locations, the US and Brazil, looking at the implications of financiers' acquisition of land and control over resources for rural livelihoods and economic justice. At the heart of Fields of Gold is a tension between efforts to transform farmland into a new financial asset class, and land's physical and social properties, which frequently obstruct that transformation. But what makes the book unique among the growing body of work on the global land grab is Fairbairn's interest in those acquiring land, rather than those affected by land acquisitions. Fairbairn's work sheds ethnographic light on the actors and relationships—from Iowa to Manhattan to São Paulo—that have helped to turn land into an attractive financial asset class. Thanks to generous funding from UC Santa Cruz, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.