The Vision Splendid: A Social and Cultural History of Rural Australia by Richard Waterhouse

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Ex library copy with all external stickers removed. Protective plastic covering. Partial date due slip on inside page. Wear to book corners and edges. Interior and binding are still very good.

The Bush has always played a central role in Australian society and culture, but its history is not a simple one of hardy Anglo-Saxon pioneers, or 'real' Australians, but a complex story of many diverse people, places and activities. The Vision Splendid tells the often-volatile stories, not only of the changing nature of the relationships between city and Bush, but of those between land owners and itinerant workers, squatters and small farmers, men and women, and Europeans and Aborigines.

In this long-awaited social and cultural history of rural Australia, Professor Richard Waterhouse also brings to life the popular forms of culture that were widely heard, read, seen and accepted in nineteenth-century rural Australia. He argues that many features remained remarkably resilient well into the twentieth century and speak directly to modern conceptions of what it is to be Australian. (back cover)

The Vision Splendid seeks to restore rural Australia to a central place in Australian history by showing how it has shaped Australian culture. "Waterhouse's discussions of representations of the bush are both complex and entertaining" Amanda Barry Melbourne Historical Journal Vol. 33 No 1 (2005).