Australian Rangelands in Contemporary Literature.

Abstract

The subject of this paper being contemporary Australian rangelands literature, I have restricted the study to literature of the decade to 1994, with focus on 1992-1994. I acknowledge recent informative studies, but have developed an individual perspective. In addition to considering recent novels and factual books I have given attention to newspaper and magazine accounts, as these give the most immediate observations of the rangelands, and attitudes towards them and their inhabitants. Key trends that emerge are perceptions of the rangelands as pristine - probably the one continuum since the commencement of written records about Australia; the entirely contrasting view of pastoralists as destroyers of rangelands; and recognition of Aboriginal spirituality as significant in caring for the land. The trends are not, however, entirely in the one direction, as I indicate by presenting both the positive and negative views presented by a select number of writers.