Overview

A Fortune 500 company as a pioneer of current gold-mining technology Jack H. Morris details how Newmont Mining revolutionized the gold mining industry and remains today the second largest gold miner in the world. He asserts that Newmont is the link between early gold mining and today’s technology-driven industry. We learn how the company’s founder and several early leaders grew up in gold camps and how, in 1917, the company helped finance South Africa’s largest gold company and later owned famous gold mines in California and Colorado. In the 1960s the company developed the process to capture “invisible gold” from small distributions of the metal in large quantities of rock, thereby opening up the rich gold field at Carlin, Nevada. Modern gold mining has all the excitement and historic significance of the metal’s colorful past. Instead of panning for ready nuggets, today’s corporate miners must face heavy odds by extracting value from ores containing as little as one-hundredth of an ounce per ton. In often-remote locations, where the capital cost of a new mine can top $2 billion, 250-ton trucks crawl from half mile deep pits and ascend, beetle-like, loaded with ore for extraction of the minute quantities of gold locked inside. Morris had unique access to company records and the cooperation of more than 80 executives and employees of the firm, but the company exercised no control over content. The author tells a story of discovery and scientific breakthrough; strong-willed, flamboyant leaders like founder Boyce Thompson; corporate raiders such as T. Boone Pickens and Jimmy Goldsmith; shakedowns by the Indonesian government and monumental battles with the French over the richest mine in Peru; and learning to operate in the present environmental regulatory climate. This is a fascinating story of the metal that has ignited passions for centuries and now sells for nearly $1,000 an ounce.

Full Product Details

9780817359010

Table of Contents

Reviews

Going for Gold is an important work. Fortunate we are to have this history?-even though it at times walks delicately around some of the more difficult topics?-and fortunate it is for the company to approach its centennial... For those readers prospecting for information on twentieth-century mining history, especially the latter half of the century's gold boom, this book is well worth the assay. - Technology and Culture Newmont Mining Corporation has been in business for close to ninety years, having successfully navigated a business environment that brought down many of its competitors. Within that story of survival in a harsh, unforgiving business world is also the story of a company attempting to do the right thing regarding the environment, to have fair and ethical dealings with foreign governments, and to give citizens in the areas being mined an economic stake in the mining operation. These have not been easy goals to accomplish. How Newmont survived and prospered in these tumultuous times, especially from the mid-1980s until the present had not yet been recorded until this book. It is a story well worth reading. - Robert Sorgenfrei, Arthur Lakes Library of the Colorado School of Mines A most fascinating book I found difficult to put down... extensively based on primary sources, particularly personal interviews with a great many of the people directly involved in, and setting, the history of the company. The book makes a valuable complement, supplementary reading, for mining engineering courses, business and management, etc. It is a superb, informative, instructive, and enjoyable read. - Jaak Daemen, Mackay School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno

"Going for Gold is an important work. Fortunate we are to have this history?—even though it at times walks delicately around some of the more difficult topics?—and fortunate it is for the company to approach its centennial. . . . For those readers prospecting for information on twentieth-century mining history, especially the latter half of the century's gold boom, this book is well worth the assay."""" - Technology and Culture """"Newmont Mining Corporation has been in business for close to ninety years, having successfully navigated a business environment that brought down many of its competitors. Within that story of survival in a harsh, unforgiving business world is also the story of a company attempting to do the right thing regarding the environment, to have fair and ethical dealings with foreign governments, and to give citizens in the areas being mined an economic stake in the mining operation. These have not been easy goals to accomplish. How Newmont survived and prospered in these tumultuous times, especially from the mid-1980s until the present had not yet been recorded until this book. It is a story well worth reading."""" - Robert Sorgenfrei, Arthur Lakes Library of the Colorado School of Mines """"A most fascinating book I found difficult to put down. . . . extensively based on primary sources, particularly personal interviews with a great many of the people directly involved in, and setting, the history of the company. The book makes a valuable complement, supplementary reading, for mining engineering courses, business and management, etc. It is a superb, informative, instructive, and enjoyable read."""" - Jaak Daemen, Mackay School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno"

Author Information

Jack H. Morris retired as vice president, investor relations, for Newmont Mining Corporation in 2001 after spending seven years with the company. He previously held similar positions with three other Fortune 500 companies, and was a reporter and bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal and political editor of the Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tennessee. An honors graduate of Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, he did graduate studies in political science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, under a Russell Sage Foundation Fellowship. The recipient of numerous professional awards, including the American Political Science Association's Award for Distinguished Reporting in Public Affairs, he is the author of Inland Steel at 100, the history of Inland Steel Industries. He is past chairman of the Denver Gold Group, the gold industry's investor relations organization. Morris and his wife, Dianne, live in Belmont, North Carolina.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available