Taming the Great South Land

Taming the Great South Land PDF Author: William J Lines
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520078307
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
Taming the Great South Land is the first full-length landscape history of an entire continent occupied by one nation. It is also, in William Lines's telling, a brutal and controversial story. Examining the ways European society rapidly, radically transformed Australia's physical and human landscapes, the author writes candidly of repeated environmental devastation--from the early slaughter of seals and whales to the destructive spread of sheep, through gold rushes and land settlement to British nuclear tests and the modern mining and timber industries. Lines shows how Enlightenment ideas of progress, economic growth, and development were reconstructed on Australian soil, and how the promise of the conquest of nature became a mockery in fact, resulting in the mass dislocation and destruction of indigenous populations. This shocking narrative, thoroughly researched and accessibly written, combines environmental, social, and political history to hard-hitting effect. Taming the Great South Land is the first full-length landscape history of an entire continent occupied by one nation. It is also, in William Lines's telling, a brutal and controversial story. Examining the ways European society rapidly, radically transformed Australia's physical and human landscapes, the author writes candidly of repeated environmental devastation--from the early slaughter of seals and whales to the destructive spread of sheep, through gold rushes and land settlement to British nuclear tests and the modern mining and timber industries. Lines shows how Enlightenment ideas of progress, economic growth, and development were reconstructed on Australian soil, and how the promise of the conquest of nature became a mockery in fact, resulting in the mass dislocation and destruction of indigenous populations. This shocking narrative, thoroughly researched and accessibly written, combines environmental, social, and political history to hard-hitting effect.

Taming the Great South Land

Taming the Great South Land PDF Author: William J Lines
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520078307
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 380

Get Book Here

Book Description
Taming the Great South Land is the first full-length landscape history of an entire continent occupied by one nation. It is also, in William Lines's telling, a brutal and controversial story. Examining the ways European society rapidly, radically transformed Australia's physical and human landscapes, the author writes candidly of repeated environmental devastation--from the early slaughter of seals and whales to the destructive spread of sheep, through gold rushes and land settlement to British nuclear tests and the modern mining and timber industries. Lines shows how Enlightenment ideas of progress, economic growth, and development were reconstructed on Australian soil, and how the promise of the conquest of nature became a mockery in fact, resulting in the mass dislocation and destruction of indigenous populations. This shocking narrative, thoroughly researched and accessibly written, combines environmental, social, and political history to hard-hitting effect. Taming the Great South Land is the first full-length landscape history of an entire continent occupied by one nation. It is also, in William Lines's telling, a brutal and controversial story. Examining the ways European society rapidly, radically transformed Australia's physical and human landscapes, the author writes candidly of repeated environmental devastation--from the early slaughter of seals and whales to the destructive spread of sheep, through gold rushes and land settlement to British nuclear tests and the modern mining and timber industries. Lines shows how Enlightenment ideas of progress, economic growth, and development were reconstructed on Australian soil, and how the promise of the conquest of nature became a mockery in fact, resulting in the mass dislocation and destruction of indigenous populations. This shocking narrative, thoroughly researched and accessibly written, combines environmental, social, and political history to hard-hitting effect.

Evidence from Earth Observation Satellites

Evidence from Earth Observation Satellites PDF Author: Ray Purdy
Publisher: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers
ISBN: 9004194436
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Book Description
Evidence from Earth Observation Satellites is an edited collection analysing emerging legal issues surrounding the use of satellite data as evidence. It considers whether data from satellite technologies can be a legally reliable, effective evidential tool in contemporary legal systems.

Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific

Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific PDF Author: Donald S. Garden
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1576078698
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
A fascinating study of the environmental history of Australia, New Zealand, and the islands of the Pacific, from the time of the dinosaurs to the present day. Of interest to students and academics alike, this book provides a much-needed synthesis of the recent literature on the environmental history of Australia and Oceania. Part of ABC-CLIO's Nature and Human Societies series, this book maps out the key trends in the region's environmental history, charting the creation of the Australian continent from the ancient land mass of Gondwanaland to the arrival of humans. Especially fascinating are the chapters highlighting how successive waves of human migration created environmental havoc throughout the region, leading to the collapse of the Easter Island civilization and the spread of nonindigenous flora and fauna. From the controversies over the reasons why creatures such as the marsupial lion and the giant kangaroo became extinct to such contemporary problems as deforestation and global warming, this book contains sobering lessons for us all.

Flooded Forest and Desert Creek

Flooded Forest and Desert Creek PDF Author: Matthew Colloff
Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING
ISBN: 0643109218
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
The river red gum has the most widespread natural distribution of Eucalyptus in Australia, forming extensive forests and woodlands in south-eastern Australia and providing the structural and functional elements of important floodplain and wetland ecosystems. Along ephemeral creeks in the arid Centre it exists as narrow corridors, providing vital refugia for biodiversity. The tree has played a central role in the tension between economy, society and environment and has been the subject of enquiries over its conservation, use and management. Despite this, we know remarkably little about the ecology and life history of the river red gum: its longevity; how deep its roots go; what proportion of its seedlings survive to adulthood; and the diversity of organisms associated with it. More recently we have begun to move from a culture of exploitation of river red gum forests and woodlands to one of conservation and sustainable use. In Flooded Forest and Desert Creek, the author traces this shift through the rise of a collective environmental consciousness, in part articulated through the depiction of river red gums and inland floodplains in art, literature and the media.

The Political Economy of Environmental Policy

The Political Economy of Environmental Policy PDF Author: Ken J. Walker
Publisher: UNSW Press
ISBN: 9780868400709
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
This is the first Australian textbook in the important and growing field of environmental politics and policy. Using the management of the Murray-Darling Basin as a central case-study, The Political Economy of Environmental Policy shows how and why environmental problems generate political conflict. It also brings relevant perspectives from political theory to bear on environmental issues, emphasizing in particular their collective nature, and the uses of social choice and game theory in understanding them. It underlines the dilemmas faced by decision makers and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of modern decision theories when applied human impacts on the natural environment. This is a textbook intended for students commencing the study of environmental policy or politics at first year university or higher.

Ecology and Empire

Ecology and Empire PDF Author: Tom Griffiths
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474468659
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Examines the relationship between the expansion of empire and the environmental experience of the extra-European world.

Myths and Memories

Myths and Memories PDF Author: Cindy Lane
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443875791
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
This book examines the perceptions of European travelling writers about southern Western Australia between 1850 and 1914. Theirs was a narrow vision of space and people in the region, shaped by their individual personalities, their position in society, and the prevailing discourses and ideologies of the age. Christian, Enlightenment, and Romantic philosophies had a major influence on their responses to the land – its cultivation and conservation, and its aesthetic qualities – and on their views of both indigenous and settler colonial society – their class and assumptions of race and ethnicity. The travelling men and women perpetuated an idealised view of a colonised landscape, and a “pioneer” community that eliminated class struggle and inequality, even though an analysis of their observations suggests otherwise. Nevertheless, although limited, their narratives are invaluable as a reflection of opinions, attitudes and knowledge prevalent during an age of imperialism. Their perspectives reveal unique viewpoints that differ from those of immigrants who wrote about their hopes and fears in making a new life for themselves. These travellers were economically secure, literate and educated; foundations which provide an insight into the way power and privilege, implicit in their writings, governed the way they imagined Western Australia in the colonial and immediate post-federation period. The tinted lenses through which European travelling writers narrowly observed space and people, presented a mythical, imagined sense of southern Western Australia.

An Environmental History of Australian Rainforests until 1939

An Environmental History of Australian Rainforests until 1939 PDF Author: Warwick Frost
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000173747
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
This book provides a comprehensive environmental history of how Australia’s rainforests developed, the influence of Aborigines and pioneers, farmers and loggers, and of efforts to protect rainforests, to help us better understand current issues and debates surrounding their conservation and use. While interest in rainforests and the movement for their conservation are often mistakenly portrayed as features of the last few decades, the debate over human usage of rainforests stretches well back into the nineteenth century. In the modern world, rainforests are generally considered the most attractive of the ecosystems, being seen as lush, vibrant, immense, mysterious, spiritual and romantic. Rainforests hold a special place; both providing a direct link to Gondwanaland and the dinosaurs and today being the home of endangered species and highly rich in biodiversity. They are also a critical part of Australia’s heritage. Indeed, large areas of Australian rainforests are now covered by World Heritage Listing. However, they also represent a dissonant heritage. What exactly constitutes rainforest, how it should be managed and used, and how much should be protected are all issues which remain hotly contested. Debates around rainforests are particularly dominated by the contradiction of competing views and uses – seeing rainforests either as untapped resources for agriculture and forestry versus valuing and preserving them as attractive and sublime natural wonders. Australia fits into this global story as a prime example but is also of interest for its aspects that are exceptional, including the intensity of clearing at certain periods and for its place in the early development of national parks. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Environmental History, Australian History and Comparative History.

The Fuss that Never Ended

The Fuss that Never Ended PDF Author: Deborah Gare
Publisher: Melbourne University Publish
ISBN: 9780522850345
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
It is time to reassess the work of Geoffrey Blainey, and consider his role in Australian history, politics and public life. Geoffrey Blainey has steered Australian history into the nation's conversation. No one would dispute that he is a courageous public intellectual, a writer of rare grace and a master storyteller. And he has indeed provoked a rare fuss, both public and professional, with some of his comments on Asian immigration and Aboriginal land rights. Blainey has challenged the academic history profession, not only with his ideas but also by his practice. A brilliant student, he looked set for Oxford but chose instead the austere west coast of Tasmania for his postgraduate research. For the next decade he earned a living with his pen. And instead of political history in the traditional academic mould, he wrote corporate histories that dispensed with footnotes. Always probing and speculative, Blainey has dislodged many of the keystones in our understandings of Australia's past. He was one of the first to write about the expansive social history of this land before 1788; he questioned whether Botany Bay was founded primarily as a convict colony; he argued that the Eureka uprising had economic rather than political causes; and he identified sport as a neglected key to the Australian character. His controversial views earned such newspaper headlines as 'Brave Man Set Upon by Thugs for Telling Truth'. In The Fuss That Never Ended a lively and distinguished assembly of fellow historiansandmdash;of various ages, interests and political stancesandmdash;take a fresh look at Blainey's remarkable and sometimes controversial career.

The Art of Time Travel

The Art of Time Travel PDF Author: Tom Griffiths
Publisher: Black Inc.
ISBN: 1925203123
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 395

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Book Description
No matter how practised we are at history, it always humbles us. No matter how often we visit the past, it always surprises us. Winner of the Ernest Scott Prize and Shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Award for Non-fiction 'A rare feat of imagination and generosity.' – Mark McKenna With every sentence they write, historians must walk the tightrope between discipline and imagination, empathy and evidence. In this landmark work, eminent historian and award-winning author Tom Griffiths shares his passion for the fascinating, complex craft of history – or, as he calls it, the art of time travel. In fourteen portraits, Griffiths illuminates how historians such as Inga Clendinnen, Judith Wright, Geoffrey Blainey and Henry Reynolds have approached their craft. In prose both earthy and elegant, he shows the new insights they have brought to Australian history, and in so doing reshapes our shared knowledge of this continent. The Art of Time Travel is an exhilarating book that will forever change the way you think of Australia's past. 'If the past is a foreign country, Tom Griffiths makes the perfect travelling companion. Let him be your eyes and ears on our shared history. Most of all, follow his heart.' – Clare Wright