Description: The second of a two-volume study of the heyday of gold, silver, and copper mining in the American West is unique in both scope and approach. Richard E. Lingenfelter describes how miners, managers, investors, and speculators produced enormous wealth--spurring the American economy, attracting myriads of Argonauts and settlers, and transforming the West and the nation. This tale of great expectations follows the money from rich pockets of ore and the bulging pockets of investors and speculators through mills, smelters, and stock markets. Some of the greatest stockholder losses came from insider looting and market manipulation. Bonanzas & Borrascas ties together the fortunes of East and West by exploring the impact of eastern investors and speculators on western mines, as well as the generally unrecognized impact of the western mines on Wall Street and Washington, D.C.
Brief description: Richard E. Lingenfelter is a Research Physicist with the Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, University of California, San Diego. Among the numerous books he has authored, coauthored, or edited are The Hardrock Miners: A History of the Mining Labor Movement in the American West, 1863-1893 and Death Valley & the Amargosa: A Land of Illusion.