In January 1848, a worker building a sawmill near Coloma, California, discovered a few flakes of gold. In doing so, he launched the California gold rush.

That sparsely settled, remote, and poorly mapped part of the country suddenly became exceptionally valuable. Over the next decade, nearly 850 tons of gold were mined. But the story is far more important than just the vast riches. According to Nathaniel Philbrick, author of “The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World,” it was one of the most transformational events in American history.

"The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World" by Nathaniel Philbrick, Viking, 464 pp.

Thanks to the gold rush, Northern California’s population surged as countless Americans, as well as immigrants from across the globe, arrived to seek their fortune. San Francisco, the gateway to the gold fields, became a boomtown. Real estate prices skyrocketed.…