Integrating the historiography of the nineteenth-century gold rushes
- Authors: Reeves, Keir , Frost, Lionel , Fahey, Charles
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Economic History Review Vol. 50, no. 2 (2010), p. 111-128
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: In the century preceding World War I, the world experienced a series of gold rushes. The wealth derived from these was distributed widely because of reduced migration costs and low barriers to entry. While gold mining itself was generally unprofitable for diggers and mine owners, the increase in the world's gold supply stimulated global trade and investment. In this introductory article we integrate the histories of migration, trade, colonisation, and environmental history to identify endogenous factors that increased the world's gold supply and generated sustained economic growth in the regions that were affected by gold rushes.
Echoes on a cultural landscape : Glimpses of Chinese community life in Castlemaine
- Authors: Reeves, Keir
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Gold Tailings: Forgotten Histories of Family and Community on the Central Victorian Goldfields p. 175-195
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
Sojourners or a new diaspora? Economic implications of the movement of Chinese miners to the south-west Pacific goldfields
- Authors: Reeves, Keir
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Economic History Review Vol. 50, no. 2 (2010), p. 178-192
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Chinese gold seekers were the largest non-British group on the goldfields of Australasia and constituted the largest nationality on some diggings. In considering the movement of Chinese miners to and throughout the goldfields colonies of the southwest Pacific, this articles argues there existed a more complex pattern of migration than that suggested by the sojourner model of arrival, brief stay and departure. It examines the links between migration patterns and economic activity, and argues that economic history perspectives complement the insights offered by recent social and cultural history in the field.