Discovering Monaro: A Study of Man's Impact on His Environment by W.K. Hancock


Discovering Monaro: A Study of Man's Impact on His Environment
Title : Discovering Monaro: A Study of Man's Impact on His Environment
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0521084393
ISBN-10 : 9780521084390
Language : English
Format Type : Hardcover
Number of Pages : 221
Publication : First published June 30, 1972
Awards : Colin Roderick Award (1972)

Discovering Monaro, a fascinating local history of an Australian region, is at the same time a contribution to the current debate on the environment and man's manipulation of it. Sir Keith Hancock examines critically the indictment, heralded by Plato in the Critias, that man is a creature who spoils his environment and in so doing spoils himself. He discovers in Monaro, as he did on the terraced hillsides of Tuscany forty years ago, a rhythm of spoiling, restoring and improving. Monaco, a region of nearly 6,000 square miles in Australia's south-eastern corner, is the main provider of water to the earth's driest continent. Sir Keith provides a detailed history of the land use of the area from palaeolithic times to the present day, thus explaining how boo generations of 'black' Australians and six generations of 'white' Australians have supported themselves on its grassy uplands and alpine water-sheds.

Discovering Monaro: A Study of Man's Impact on His Environment Reviews

  • Anne Fenn

    This was another book brought to my attention by Tom Griffith in his The Art of Time Travel. It's a detailed study of the area around Canberra and the Snowy Mountains from white settlement on. It's full-on history, very scholarly but lightened by the writer's voice directing us clearly to show what's important to the task. I like his approach, it includes looking beyond the practical to the moral outcomes, although the conclusions in the latter area are very general. The book itself is interesting, published in 1972, it was one of the very first Australian histories to integrate the environment into the account. Written by one of Australia's foremost historians, it must have given the environmental movement a valuable boost. It's a book of its time with almost no reference made to indigenous/white relations, and women's role is ignored.

  • Rod

    i thoroughly enjoyed discovering Monaro ,and I still pick it up from time to time and re read parts of the book having come from a pioneering family I found this book particularly interesting as it is from my local area I am a sixth generation Australian and very proud of my family History
    this book paints very a clear picture of just how our early settlers lived and worked the lands
    i purchased this book in 1977 I was in Sydney and just happened on a small book shop in Potts Point Clays bookshop the book was in the front window.
    and just looking straight at me it caught my attention so I went in and bought it
    i didn't sit down and read it soon it was a few months later and I picked it up and then i was totally taken with it it is a history book with lots of entwining little stories all the way through it
    it is also a very good reference book i found it very handy for cross referencing with other books on local History.
    i feel that in this day and age we are looking more closely at local history to find out more of our origins a Study on Mans Impact on his Environment is a good read in my opinion