The Rush, Edward Dolnick
The Rush, Edward Dolnick
6 Rating(s)
List: $27.99 | Sale: $19.59
Club: $13.99

The Rush
America's Fevered Quest for Fortune, 1848-1853

Author: Edward Dolnick

Narrator: Bernard Setaro Clark

Unabridged: 10 hr

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/12/2014


Synopsis

A riveting portrait of the Gold Rush, by the award-winning author of Down the Great Unknown and The Forger's Spell.

In the spring of 1848, rumors began to spread that gold had been discovered in a remote spot in the Sacramento Valley. A year later, newspaper headlines declared "Gold Fever!" as hundreds of thousands of men and women borrowed money, quit their jobs, and allowed themselves- for the first time ever-to imagine a future of ease and splendor. In The Rush, Edward Dolnick brilliantly recounts their treacherous westward journeys by wagon and on foot, and takes us to the frenzied gold fields and the rowdy cities that sprang from nothing to jam-packed chaos. With an enthralling cast of characters and scenes of unimaginable wealth and desperate ruin, The Rush is a fascinating-and rollicking-account of the greatest treasure hunt the world has ever seen.

About Edward Dolnick

Edward Dolnick is the author of Down the Great Unknown and the Edgar Award-winning The Rescue Artist. A former chief science writer at the Boston Globe, he has written for The Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times Magazine, and many other publications. He lives with his wife near Washington, DC.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Grumpus on October 23, 2014

Marshmallows! You’re all marshmallows. I’m a marshmallow too. We’re all so soft these days. None of us could have survived the journey that these hardy pioneers undertook. I’m not talking about the greed of gold but rather the determination of these folks to essentially walk across the country. Firs......more

Goodreads review by Lucy on January 14, 2024

I'm not particularly interested in the gold rush, but this completely drew me in. I loved the way he used journals to put us in the moment. The crossing part was so stressful to read that I had some kind of anxiety hangover the next day. Good writing!......more

Goodreads review by Don on March 22, 2015

A friend recommended I read this. He knows of my interest in Western history. I'm glad he did. Not the first migration of Europeans to head for California, the Spanish beat the Americans by over 200 years, Dolnick tells a well documented history of the first mass migration of Americans to not just s......more

Goodreads review by Coral on July 29, 2018

"I wish I had all hell boiled down to a pint just to pour down your throat." What set this book apart, for me, from all of the others that cover the Gold Rush is its mining of the journals and diaries of those who had caught the fever and made the grueling trek from East Coast to West Coast. It also......more

Goodreads review by Hen on October 31, 2020

I'd been waiting years to read and my library never procured so I bought for $3.99. A nice fast read and informative. Worth it.......more