The Bush - the ultimate question - what is the bush? How to use the same term to refer to Qld rainforest, SA desert & Western District grazing land? - brings the question of what is Australia? - does someone in Fitzroy live in the same Australia as someone in Townsville? or Sea Lake? What does keep us together? Did anything in the past? ANZAC might have worked for a time but loses resonance with post WWII migration?
The destruction of the countryside - in a way unintentional, but no less complete for that, and the speed in which it happened - two generations to clear a continent.
Lords of the Atlas - great tale of adventure & tyrants in Morocco - happening at the same time as Watson's story - much is made of humans being the same the world over, but once culture comes into it that's where the difference lies.
The natural beauty of Morocco must be something to see.
The Bush The mystery of how explorers claimed the land as unused even when fighting off Aborigines. The management of the land by Aborigines - changed the environment - Edward Curr doubted if "any section of the human race has exercised a greater influence on the physical condition of any large portion of the globe than the wandering savages of Australia."
Took the Aborigines hundreds if not thousands of years to change the landscape - white men did it in 50.
Books read: The Bush by Don Watson, Lords of the Atlas by Gavin Maxwell
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