{"product_id":"2026200010545-secondhand-the-golden-age-a-history-of-the-colony-of-victoria-1851-1861","title":"The Golden Age: A History Of The Colony Of Victoria 1851-1861","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003eCondition: Good. Jacket: No dust jacket - paperback with some wear and minor soiling to cover. Page Condition: Good. Markings: No markings. Binding condition: Good. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe discovery of gold in 1851 transformed Victoria from a fledgling pastoral colony into one of the most dynamic and consequential societies of the nineteenth-century world. Geoffrey Serle's landmark work chronicles this extraordinary decade with meticulous scholarship, tracing the political upheaval, social transformation, and economic revolution that the gold rushes unleashed upon the young colony — from the chaos of the diggings at Ballarat and Bendigo to the turbulent birth of democratic governance in Melbourne.\n\nRegarded as a cornerstone of Australian historiography, this authoritative study presents the human drama behind the statistics — the diggers, merchants, politicians, and immigrants who collectively forged a modern civic identity out of mud and ambition. Serle's rigorous yet accessible prose illuminates the tensions between order and freedom, wealth and inequality, that defined an era, leaving the reader to wonder how profoundly those foundational fault lines continue to shape the Australia of today.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49130701881563,"sku":"2026200010545-SECONDHAND","price":30.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/c957cd20-0ce1-418d-a83c-255c7c06c1b0.png?v=1786588908","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200010545-secondhand-the-golden-age-a-history-of-the-colony-of-victoria-1851-1861","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}