An environmental History of California during the Gold Rush Between 1849 and 1874 almost $1 billion in gold was mined in California. With little available capital or labor, here's how: high-pressure water cannons washed hillsides into sluices that used mercury to trap gold but let the soil wash away; eventually more than three times the amount of earth moved to make way for the Panama Canal entered California's rivers, leaving behind twenty tons of mercury every mile--rivers overflowed their banks and valleys were flooded, the land poisoned. In the rush to wealth, the same chain of foreseeable consequences reduced California's forests and grasslands. Not since William Cronon's Nature's Metropolis has a historian so skillfully applied John Muir's insight--When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe--to the telling of the history of the American West. Beautifully told, this is western environmental history at its finest. Andrew C. Isenberg is a professor of history at Temple University. He is the author of The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750-1920 and is a former fellow of the Huntington Library and the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies.

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title Between 1849 and 1874, almost one billion dollars in gold was mined in California. The California gold rush was a key chapter in American industrialization, not only because of the wealth it produced but because of its heavy environmental costs. With labor costs high and capital scarce, California miners used hydraulic technology to shift the burden of their enterprise onto the environment: high-pressure water canons washed hillsides into sluices that used mercury to trap gold but let the soil wash away, and eventually thousands of tons of poisonous debris entered California's rivers. The profitability of hydraulic mining spurred other forms of resource exploitation in the state, including logging, large-scale ranching, and city-building. These, too, took their toll on the environment. This resource-intensive development, typical of American industrialization, became the template for the transformation of the West. Not since Williams Cronon's Nature's Metropolis has a historian so skillfully applied John Muir's insight--When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe--to telling the ecological history of the American West. Succinct and provocative, Mining California is environmental history at its finest.

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title At a time when California's] residency has been forecast to grow by 13 million in the next 25 years, with its population probably stretching into its farthest regions, Mining California offers sobering reading on the consequences of unchecked expansion.--Tess Taylor, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review At a time when California's] residency has been forecast to grow by 13 million in the next 25 years, with its population probably stretching into its farthest regions, Mining California offers sobering reading on the consequences of unchecked expansion.--Tess Taylor, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review A broadly researched history of the impact of human, especially Euramerican, settlement in California . Isenberg amply demonstrates how California's unstable geography, erratic weather, singular mix of natural resources, and shortages of capital and labor all encouraged growth of extractive industries (of which mining was the first example) and innovations to reduce labor costs and achieve economies of scale through the large-scale organization of enterprise . Offering excellent maps and a comprehensive bibliography, the book is richly illustrated, fully endnoted, and superbly written. This excellent read, a model for future studies, deserves highest recommendations and above.--D. Steeples, Mercer University (Emeritus), Choice Based on extensive archival work.