William J. Lines
Autor von Taming the Great South Land: A History of the Conquest of Nature in Australia
Werke von William J. Lines
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Biography of conservationist Georgiana Malloy who created English gardens in the barreness of Australia during the 19th century. A far more interesting read than I anticipated (having very little interest in gardens).
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- 8
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- 105
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- #183,191
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- 3.3
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- 14
This guy's core thesis is an appealing one: that conservationists in Australia are the true patriots as they fight to defend our natural heritage. I suspected the rest of the book, though, of being only marginally true. It's basically a history of the conservation movement in Australia.
I stopped reading not long after coming across this patently false passage,
"New language and new posturing muddied conservation arguments and activism....Nature, in contrast, is an altogether different utterance. One of the least ambiguous words in English, its meaning is very clear and ancient." I'm not a historian, and I wasn't there at any of the events described, but I know about linguistics, and I know that this is an utterly absurd statement. That's enough evidence to convince me that all those other passages that made me think, "I wish I knew a bit more Australian history, because I suspect that is just wrong," were actually just wrong.
Further, none of the episodes in the book are used to support a broader thesis. It's a series of tendentious arguments sandwiched between dubious anecdotes and character sketches. I only got to page 120 out of 300 or so.… (mehr)