Standing on the Wharf, Weeping

Greg Dening

The Enlightenment and the Origins of European Australia by John Gascoigne
Looking for Blackfella’s Point: An Australian History of Place by Mark McKenna
Words for Country: Landscape and Language in Australia by Tim Bonyhady and Tom Griffiths
The Land Is a Map: Placenames of Indigenous Origin in Australia edited by Luise Hercus, Flavia Hodges and Jane Simpson

Earlier this year, bushfires engulfed the east coast of Australia. In Canberra, where I work, five hundred houses were lost. The National University was in a state of shock. Mount Stromlo, an icon of Australian astronomy since Federation, is gone, with all its telescopes and research data. In Melbourne, where I live, the air was thick with smoke from fires 300 km away. The stench frightened us all day. In the mountains to the north and on the high plains to the north-east, there were fires along a 350 km front. The temperature was 44°C; the winds were blowing at up to 100 km an hour. The land, with its extremes of fire, drought and flood – and its beauty – is always in our faces.

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From the LRB letters page: [ 6 November 2003 ] John Clayton [ 4 December 2003 ] Jud Heywood [ 18 December 2003 ] Bruce Clunies Ross [ 8 January 2004 ] John Barnes.

Greg Dening is emeritus professor of history at the University of Melbourne.