Ecological Pioneers: A Social History of Australian Ecological Thought and Action

Description

Whenever the history of ecological thought has been written the contributions of Australian thinkers have been omitted. Yet Australia as a continent of extreme, rare and complex environments has produced a startling group of ecological pioneers. Across a wide range of human endeavour, Australian thinkers and innovators - whether they have thought of themselves as environmentalists or not - have made some truly original contributions to ecological thought. Ecological Pioneers traces the emergence of ecological understandings in Australia. By constructing a social history with chapters focusing on different fields in the arts, sciences, politics and public life, the authors bring to life the work of significant individuals. Some of the ecological pioneers featured include Joseph Banks, Russell Drysdale, Judith Wright, Myles Dunphy, Philip Crosbie Morrison, Vincent Serventy, Francis Ratcliffe, the Gurindji and Yolngu peoples, Bill Mollison, Jack Mundey, Val Plumwood, Michael Leunig, and many more.

'For Australians of any age, it is a superb primer for increasing one's knowledge of the history of ecology in this country.' Gardening Australia 'Mulligan and Hill's Ecological Pioneers provides a rate conjunction: a rattling good read that is also a work of wide-ranging yet meticulously detailed scholarship ... its emphasis on the human and the vulnerable makes for an account that is more than usually engaging ... it is my opinion that this is a very fine book ... what emerges is an informative, compelling, compassionate, grounded and immensely entertaining social history of Australian environmentalism.' Ecopolitics