The Second Rush: Mining and the Transformation of Australia

The Second Rush is a history of the minerals boom in Australia over the half-century from the early 1960s to the end of the China minerals boom in 2012. The earlier substantial mining boom—the gold rush of the nineteenth century—created extraordinary prosperity. However, from 1901 to the 1950s, with a few exceptions, mining descended into the doldrums. In the 1940s mining was regarded as belonging to Australia’s past and not to its future.

The “Second Rush” began unexpectedly from the 1960s ...