Struggle Country: The Rural Ideal in Twentieth Century Australia

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Graeme Davison, Marc Brodie
Monash University ePress, 2005 - Business & Economics - 200 pages
The decline of Australian country life is not new - either as a phenomenon or as a popular fear. Contemporary interest in this area is often highlighted in hopeful policy frameworks for the revitalisation of town and countryside. The continuing interaction between our dreams of the Australian countryside and the reality of its decline is the key focus of Struggle Country: The Rural Ideal in Twentieth Century Australia. Linking present concerns to history, this collection of essays looks at how the dreams of progress that captured the imagination of country towns and regions, city politicians and even historians themselves, led to specific positive and negative outcomes in these areas, which in turn influenced how these regions were treated.

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Contents

CHAPTER 3 History and memory in Australias wheatlands
3-1
CHAPTER 4 Local history and decline in country Victoria
4-1
CHAPTER 5 The river and the town
5-1
CHAPTER 6 Closer settlement in Queensland
6-1
CHAPTER 7 Listening in to The Lawsons
7-1
CHAPTER 8 The Rocky Gully exodus
8-1
CHAPTER 9 The politics of rural nostalgia between the wars
9-1
CHAPTER 10 The dying town syndrome
10-1
AFTERWORD Return to countrymindedness
11-1
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About the author (2005)

Graeme Davison is Emeritus Professor of History at Monash University. His previous books include The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne, The Use and Abuse of Australian History, Car Wars: How the Car Won Our Hearts and Conquered Our Cities and, as co-editor, The Oxford Companion to Australian History. His most recent book, University Unlimited: The Monash Story (with Kate Murphy) appeared in 2012.

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