Taming the Great South Land: A History of the Conquest of Nature in Australia by William J. Lines

Taming the Great South Land is a profound new history of Australia. It tells the story of two centuries of European settlement from the point of view of the land and its indigenous people. Taming the Great South Land is a powerful and pioneering study and, in the tradition The Fatal Shore, is compelling reading. William Lines combines environmental, social and political history to record 200 years of implacable exploitation of nature. He traces how the Enlightenment ideas of progress, economic growth and development were transported to Australia and employed in the conquest of nature. From the early slaughter of seals, through land settlement and the gold rushes to British nuclear tests and the modern mining and timber industries, the results of the conquest are written on our landscape. They have been felt most keenly by the indigenous population of the continent. But this is not a uniquely Australian story: its pattern runs through the history of the developed countries of the world. Taming the Great South Land is an epic saga of the human impact on the Australian environment.