Writing the Rushes: Recent Literature on Australasian Mining History

The well-chosen title of Geoffrey Blainey’s ground-breaking book The Rush that Never Ended, published as long ago as 1963, was designed to evoke the hectic nature and boisterous spirit of Australia’s metal mining history. But it might also serve to describe the plethora of books, chapters and articles (including the scholarly Journal of Australasian Mining History) that have appeared in the half century and more since Blainey’s inspirational volume was first published. The three recent publications reviewed here are part of that seemingly never-ending rush, and reflect the enduring fascination, popular as well as academic, with Australasia’s mining past – and present.