The Colonial Earth by Tim Bonyhady

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Corners are now protected with book tape. Interior and binding are still very good.

When the First Fleet sailed for New South Wales in 1787, the British government ordered Governor Phillip to preserve the cattle, sheep and hogs he brought with him, but not the environment he found. Yet Phillip and his officers were quick to try to protect Australia's land. This book challenges the equation of colonisation with destruction.

Tim Bonyhady reveals the extraordinary breadth and depth - as well as the limits - of environmental concern in Australia from the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788.

"This is a story of activism and idealism, of intense appreciation of Australia's remarkable environment, and of sharp awareness of the limits to colonial growth. It is also a story of failure: of environmental ideals sacrificed to political expediency and commercial self-interest; of innovative and enlightened laws ignored and broken."

Drawing on a remarkable array of sources, from paintings and poems to reports of public meetings and parliamentary debates, The Colonial Earth shows that far from being a product of the 1970s, an environmental aesthetic has always been part of the culture of European Australia.