The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes, Chinese Migration, and Global Politics: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics

Winner of the 2022 Bancroft PrizeShortlisted for the 2022 Cundill History PrizeFinalist for the 2022 Los Angeles Times Book PrizeHow Chinese migration to the world’st goldfields upended global power and economics and forged modern conceptions of race.In roughly five decades, between 1848 and 1899, more gold was removed from the earth than had been mined in the 3,000 preceding years, bringing untold wealth to individuals and nations.

But friction between Chinese and white settlers on the goldfields of California, Australia, and South Africa catalyzed a global battle over “the Chinese Question”: would the United States and the British Empire outlaw Chinese immigration?This distinguished history of the Chinese diaspora and global capitalism chronicles how a feverish alchemy of race and money brought Chinese people to the West and reshaped the nineteenth-century world.

Drawing on ten years of research across five continents, prize-winning historian Mae Ngai narrates the story of the thousands of Chinese who left their homeland in pursuit of gold, and how they formed communities and organizations to help navigate their perilous new world.