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Lydia Kiesling

Lydia Kiesling is a novelist and culture writer whose work has appeared in New York Times Magazine, New Yorker and the Cut.

Stories from Lydia Kiesling

The Smithsonian holds a nugget, above, thought to have been discovered by James Marshall in 1848.

When a Carpenter in California Found a Nugget of Gold, It Started a Rush Toward Nothing Less Than the Modern World

A new book by historian Nathaniel Philbrick makes the case that James Marshall’s 1848 discovery set in motion events from the Civil War to the rise of Silicon Valley