Want a good summer read before heading Down Under? Here are some optional resources that will help you channel that energy and catch the Australian spirit….
Geological and Natural History
From the Back Cover: “…a vivid and informative account of the evolution of the Australian continent over the last 4400 million years. This illuminating history begins with the Precambrian rocks that hold clues to the origins of life and the development of an oxygenated atmosphere, then covers the warm seas, volcanism and the multiple cycles of Palaeozoic mountain building, which built the eastern third of the Australian continent. It details the breakup of the supercontinent of Gondwana, the development of climates and landscapes in modern Australia, and the creation of the continental shelves and coastlines. Separate chapters cover the volcanic origins of the basalts in Eastern Australia, [ and the] formation and development of the Great Barrier Reef [.]
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From the Publisher: “Shaping a Nation is the story of a continent’s geological evolution as seen through the lens of human impacts. Exploring the geology, resources and landscapes of Australia, the book reveals how these have helped to shape this nation’s society, environment and wealth. Presented in a refreshingly non-linear format, the book summarises much of what we know about this country’s geological history, discussing the fossil record and evolution of life across the continent, describing its mineral and energy reserves, and revealing the significance of its coastal and groundwater systems”.
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From the Cover Sleeve: “Australia: The Four Billion Year Journey of a Continent traces the evolution and natural history of Australia from the development of the early land mass four and half billion years ago, to the formation of the modern continent..[]. According to the latest scientific data, Australia’s geological journey has taken it to both poles twice. During this process of continental drift, the land has suffered monumental upheaval and some of evolutions’s boldest experiments are registered in its unique fossil record. The time frame for this incredible journey can be more easily understood as a 24 hour clock – placing Australia’s birth a little after 2am and the arrival of man during the final seconds – which ticks off the eons of this fantastic voyage.”……………………………………………………………….
Fiction
From the Back Cover: “It was a cloudless summer day in the year 1900. Everyone at Appleyard College for Young Ladies agreed it was just right for a picnic at Hanging Rock. After lunch, a group of three girls climbed into the blaze of the afternoon sun, pressing on through the scrub into the shadows of the secluded volcanic outcropping. Farther, higher, until at last they disappeared. They never returned”.
The foundation of the (now classic) Australian film by the same name, Joan Lindsay has forever placed herself among the greats of Australian literature with this unassumingly titled masterpiece. Combining mystery, landscape, sense-of-place, and an undertone of horror and mystique, the book bursts with a sense of ominous foreboding. Here, geological landscape and time itself are not merely backdrop but active characters. Before you know it, the Hanging Rock has cast a spell on you, leaving you without a doubt that this is modern mythology in the making.
Ecology
From the Back Cover: “In this groundbreaking ecological history of Australasia, acclaimed scientist and historian Tim Flannery argues that the Aborigines, Maoris, and other Polynesian peoples were the original “future eaters”, humans who consumed the resources they would need for their own survival – even to the point of exhaustion – with a dramatic impact on the indigenous flora and fauna. Beginning with the Australasian continent’s geological formation billions of years ago, Flannery follows the environment of the islands through the age of the dinosaurs to the age of mammals and the arrival of humanity on its shores, to the coming of European colonizers and the advent of the industrial society that would change nature’s balance forever”. The Future Eaters is a dramatic narrative of history that combines natural history, anthropology, and ecology on an epic scale”. …………………………………………………………………………..
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From the Back Cover: “Across Australia, early Europeans commented again and again that the land looked like a park. With extensive grassy patches and pathways, open woodlands and abundant wildlife, it evoked a country estate in England. Bill Gammage has discovered this was because Aboriginal people managed the land in a far more systematic and scientific fashion that we have ever realised. For over a decade, Gammage has examined written and visual records of the Australian landscape. He has uncovered an extraordinarily complex system of land management using fire and the life cycles of native plants to ensure plentiful wildlife and plant foods throughout the year. We know Aboriginal people spent far less time and effort than Europeans in securing food and shelter, and now we know how they did it.”…………………………………………………………………………..
Colonial History
From the Back Cover: “The exploration of Australia is one of the greatest adventure stories in the history of the world. In The Explorers, renowned scientist and historian Tim Flannery brings together the writings of men and women who traversed, circumnavigated, and settled the continent, from William Jansz, captain of the ship that brought the first Europeans to make landfall in 1606, through Robyn Davidson, the adventurer who crossed the Australian deserts on camelback in the 1970s. Each of their stories is flush with enterprise that Flannery describes as ‘heroic, for nowhere else did explorers face such an obdurate country’ – and filled with the sense of awe and wonder toward the vast untamed beauty of the extraordinary land that lay before them.”
Experience the European exploration of Australia from first-hand accounts. This collection of actual diary and journal entries provides a history by those who lived it. From the 16th century to the present, this is how Australia became known to outsiders.
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Short review by Glen Levy in Time Magazine: “It could be argued that the Australian-born Robert Hughes had to move to America (where, for many years, he served as TIME’s art critic) in order to rediscover his home country and write about it with open eyes. And if the staggering achievement that is The Fatal Shore is anything to go by, that’s exactly what happened. It’s the shocking story of the social experiment that was the “transportation system” under which England exiled 160,000 criminals Down Under for the best part of 100 years, beginning in 1788.
Nearly 200 years later, Hughes rights the wrong of his nation, which had no comprehensive account of what became known as the “hated stain,” by penning this riveting account of Australia’s penal-colony origins. The reader is submerged in the dark heart of the subject matter, in this “land of inversions where it was high summer in January [and] trees kept their leaves but shed their bark.”
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From amazon.com summary: A groundbreaking history of the marvelously contrary, endlessly energetic early years of the colony of Sydney
Aboriginal Peoples
From the Back Cover: “Richard Broom tells the history of Australia from the standpoint of the original Australians: those who lost most in the early colonial struggle for power. Surveying two centuries of Aboriginal-European encounters, he shows how white settlers steadily supplanted the original inhabitants, from the shining coasts to inland deserts, by sheer force of numbers, disease, technology and violence. He also tells the story of Aboriginal survival through resistance and accommodation, and traces the continuing Aboriginal struggle to move from the margins of a settler society to a more central place in modern Australia.”
More than just a history, this book is both introduction and homage to the culture of the Aboriginal people of Australia. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand race, ethnicity, and Australian history. Provides a unique lens through which Americans can inspect their own checkered past and effect on North America’s First Nations.
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From the Back Cover: “For many of their campfire tales, the Aboriginal people of Australia looked to the skies, where they found a twinkling text of morals and stories within their own version of the zodiac. Today the starry birds, fishes, and dancing men that provided a backdrop to life Down Under for thousands of years have found a new popularity beyond Australia. With this colorful collection of oral traditions, compiled by an Australian physician, readers can savor the tales as they were told by their aboriginal narrators”.
Incredibly colorful and creative narratives but unfortunately with little to no cultural context or interpretation. This is a facsimile of a 1932 publication. The book captures stories as told by Aboriginal people in the early part of the 20th century. The inclusion of characters, literary style, and even the occasional quotation, sourced from Christianity begs the question of how much the stories reflect their Aboriginal roots.
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