The New Gilded Age Has an Old Problem | Nathaniel Philbrick

I love narrative non fiction. I I love those books that have a crazy good story. But then as a result they ended up telling me about this wide Swath of history. And almost nobody does that better than Nathaniel Filbrick. If you've read In the Heart of the Sea. probably his magnum opus, his incredible book about the whaling industry and Moby Dick and the real story it's based on. He's also got a great book on the Mayflower, which is a finalist for the Pilitzer Prize. He has a great book on George Washington, just one of our great narrative nonfiction writers. And this book is ostensibly about events, you know, uh a hundred and fifty plus years ago. But you cannot read this new book and not feel it is about this exact

Moment. Well, I I love the book. I I will say you made a liar out of me, which I'm a little upset about. I start every year by telling myself I'm not gonna read another book about the Civil War this year. I've read too many and I don't need to read anymore. And I keep going down this rabbit hole. And so I saw your book. I actually heard about it before we were gonna do this, and I was like, Oh, I've gotta read that book. And then somehow I'm ended up reading another book about the civil war. Uh yeah, you you got a sort of a left turn there, I guess. But uh I mean that was kind of what I I discovered that you know you can't talk about the gold rush without tracing its tentacles uh into American history and they lead so directly uh to the civil war. It's it's kind of amazing. California is uh an incredible place. I I grew up Actually in Sacramento. So I knew a bit about the gold rush, obviously. I lived in Placer County, you know, it's sort of right there in the name. But what's weird about California is for some reason I think because of technology in Silicon Valley and then entertainment in

in southern California, it kind of is presented to the American people as this kind of a historical place, like this modern place. And what's so fascinating about the the gold rush is is obviously That's a long time ago. And the gold rush is like not even the beginning of California history. Right, right. I mean it goes way back. And in fact I begin the book in fifteen ten with a s a Spanish romance novelist who invents the name California in which he describes this fantastic island of jagged peaks of dominated by ruled by women where the only medal is gold.

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