Strangers in a Foreign Land
Strangers in a Foreign Land

Author: Neil Black

Publisher: The Miegunyah Press

Published: 2008-01-01

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0522855121

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When Niel Black, one of the most influential settlers of the Western District of Victoria, stepped onto the sand at Port Phillip Bay in 1839 and declared Melbourne to be 'almost altogether a Scotch settlement', he was paying the newly created outpost of the British Empire his highest compliment. His journal, reproduced here in its entirety, provides rare insight into the realities of early settlement in Victoria, detailing experiences of personal hardship and physical danger as well as the potential for accumulating great wealth and success. Drawing on the extensive collections of the State Library of Victoria, Strangers in a Foreign Land also includes glimpses into the lives of other settlers and the indigenous people of the area. It evokes the sense of place and dislocation that the early settlers encountered, and the hopes and anxieties they carried with them as they created new homes in Australia.

Engines of Influence
Engines of Influence

Author: Elizabeth Morrison

Publisher: Academic Monographs

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 052285155X

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Engines of Influence is a fifty-year history of Victoria's country newspapers, beginning with James Harrison's Geelong Advertiser in 1840 and ending in December 1890 when 166 papers were being published in 122 country towns. This significant book identifies all press sites and newspapers of the era, whether long-lasting or short-lived, and highlights the major part played by them in helping construct the machinery of government, lay the foundations of party politics and foster a sense of rural Victorian identity. The country press was an important agent of political change leading up to events such as the separation of the Port Phillip District from New South Wales in 1851, and the federation of the colony of Victoria with other British dependencies into a single nation at the end of the nineteenth century. Engines of Influence shows how country newspapers also exercised cultural authority, circulating ideas generated both within local communities and from the wider world. Towards the end of the fifty years examined, this rural press was becoming a close part of a unified political state, linked through the metropolitan press and agencies to a technologically-based global communications network.

Aboriginal Biocultural Knowledge in South-eastern Australia
Aboriginal Biocultural Knowledge in South-eastern Australia

Author: Fred Cahir

Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING

Published: 2018-05-01

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 1486306136

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Indigenous Australians have long understood sustainable hunting and harvesting, seasonal changes in flora and fauna, predator–prey relationships and imbalances, and seasonal fire management. Yet the extent of their knowledge and expertise has been largely unknown and underappreciated by non-Aboriginal colonists, especially in the south-east of Australia where Aboriginal culture was severely fractured. Aboriginal Biocultural Knowledge in South-eastern Australia is the first book to examine historical records from early colonists who interacted with south-eastern Australian Aboriginal communities and documented their understanding of the environment, natural resources such as water and plant and animal foods, medicine and other aspects of their material world. This book provides a compelling case for the importance of understanding Indigenous knowledge, to inform discussions around climate change, biodiversity, resource management, health and education. It will be a valuable reference for natural resource management agencies, academics in Indigenous studies and anyone interested in Aboriginal culture and knowledge.