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

Winner of the 2022 Bancroft Prize Shortlisted for the 2022 Cundill History Prize Finalist for the 2022 Los Angeles Times Book Prize How Chinese migration to the world’s 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 goldf