The Bush by Don Watson
Most Australians live in cities and cling to the coastal fringe, yet our sense of what an Australian is - or should be - is drawn from the vast and varied inland called the bush. But what do we mean by 'the bush', and how has it shaped us?
Starting with his forebears' battle to drive back nature and eke a living from the land, Don Watson explores the bush as it was and as it now is: the triumphs and the ruination, the commonplace and the bizarre, the stories we like to tell about ourselves and the national character, and those we don't. Via mountain ash and mallee, the birds and the beasts, slaughter, fire, flood and drought, swagmen, sheep and their shepherds, the strange and the familiar, the tragedies and the follies, the crimes and the myths and the hope - here is a journey that only our leading writer of non-fiction could take us on.
At once magisterial in scope and alive with telling, wry detail, The Bush lets us see our landscape and its inhabitants afresh, examining what we have made, what we have destroyed, and what we have become in the process. No one who reads it will look at this country the same way again.
Paperback | 448 pages
131 x 197 x 30mm | 369g
03 Oct 2016
Penguin Random House Australia
Hamish Hamilton
Hawthorn, Australia
English
1926428692
9781926428697
Condition: Good
A secondhand book that has been read but is in good condition. Very minimal damage to the cover, including very minor scuff marks and some minor but obvious creasing, but no holes or tears. There is also very faint blue pen markings on the front cover, over the BU of the word BUSH. The top of the first page of the book has a mark made with what looks like orange crayon. There is also a squiggly mark at the top of the title page made with blue pen. The rest of the pages are undamaged, with very minimal creasing, but no tearing. No pencil underlining of text, no highlighting of text, no writing in margins. No missing pages.