The Limits of Hope: Soldier Settlement in Victoria 1915-38 by Marilyn Lake

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Dust jacket has light creasing at edges and spine. Dust jacket is now enclosed in a glossy protective cover. Interior and binding are still excellent.

As the major repatriation program of the First World War, soldier settlement placed more than 100,000 men, women and children on farms throughout Australia in the 1920s. This last phase of the 80-year-old project to create a yeomanry in Australia was largely unsuccessful.

The Limits of Hope is a history of work, women and politics. An innovative social history, this book charts the relationships between the work process, family life and political mobilisation.

Settlers' lives were dominated by work and the demands for efficient, scientific farming. Women and children comprised a reserve army of labour, usually unpaid.

Drawing on letters, petitions, and memoirs of Victorian settlers and their wives, it blends social analysis with a vivid depiction of individual experience to produce a moving account.