The Biggest Estate on Earth
How Aborigines Made Australia
By: Bill Gammage
Paperback | 1 June 2012 | Edition Number 1
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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 than 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.
With details of land-management strategies from around Australia, The Biggest Estate on Earth rewrites the history of this continent, with huge implications for us today. Once Aboriginal people were no longer able to tend their country, it became overgrown and vulnerable to the hugely damaging bushfires we now experience. And what we think of as virgin bush in a national park is nothing of the kind.
About the Author
Bill Gammage is a historian and adjunct professor in the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University. He is best known as author of the ground-breaking The Broken Years: Australian Soldiers in the Great War.
Industry Reviews
"This bold book, with its lucid prose and vivid illustrations, will be discussed for years to come." --"Australian Book Review"
ISBN: 9781743311325
ISBN-10: 174331132X
Published: 1st June 2012
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Number of Pages: 384
Audience: College, Tertiary and University
For Ages: 0 years old
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Country of Publication: AU
Edition Number: 1
Dimensions (cm): 3.1 x 17.3 x 24.5
Weight (kg): 1.04
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