Australia: The Quiet Continent

by Douglas Pike

Cambridge University Press, 1970, [Second Edition], black and white photographic plates, paperback

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, previous owners’ inscription on front endpaper, underlining and margin notes on a few pages in lead and blue ink (see photographs)

“A second edition of Professor Pike’s valuable study of the growth of the Australian nation.  His main theme is the sober hard-won progress of isolated colonies struggling to increase their population and pay their way.  He tells of the uneven advance, of success and failure, of windfall wealth.  Most of all he tells of efforts of men to make themselves secure in a land starved of capital and private investment.
For this edition Professor Pike has corrected errors in the text and revised and added new material to the chapter on developments since 1958.  He surveys important political events in Southeast Asia since the mid 1950s, in particular, Australia’s involvement in the defence of Malaysia and in Vietnam.  The invasion of Australia’s open spaces by men and machines in search of minerals was perhaps the most exciting development of the 1960s.  Professor Pike tells the story of the success of these excavations and of the remarkable urban and industrial growth and expansion of Australian agricultural production in the last decade.”