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Australia's incredible gold rushes of the mid to late-1800s produced tremendous wealth and ensured the financial survival of the struggling Australian colonies. Not only that, but they also tripled the country's small population, were the last nail in the coffin for convict transportation, subverted the hierarchical British class system, laid the foundations of the Australian egalitarian ethos and stimulated the democratic ideas that led to the establishment of the nation of Australia.

People from all walks of life - soldiers, sailors, policemen, lawyers, aristocrats, the destitute, and the desperate - and eve two future prime ministers of Great Britain and Australia - threw off their previous pursuits and made the often perilous journey to the goldfields, from where they would return either fabulously wealthy, with their pockets filled with gold, or demoralised and broken - if they returned at all.

David Hill relates the people and events of this monumental turning point in Australia's history using the diaries, journals, books, letters, official reports, parliamentary enquiries, and newspaper articles of the time, along with his own master storyteller's skill of bringing the past to life. from New South Wales and Victoria, up to Queensland and the Northern Territory, then down to Tasmania and across the great deserts of Western Australia, he tracks the huge gold discoveries that would forever change Australia.

Contents:
Map of Australia's Gold Regions
Acknowledgements
Preface
1. Hargreaves
2. Sydney: The First Rush
3. A Bigger Rush in Victoria
4. The World Joins the Rush
5. Life on the Goldfields
6. The Eureka Rebellion
7. The Chinese
8. The Gold Rush Spreads
9. Law and Disorder
10. Queensland Joins the Rush
11. The Palmer River
12. The Wild West
13. Lasseter's Lost Reef
References
Bibliography
Index