Hunters and Collectors: The Antiquarian Imagination in Australia

by Tom Griffiths

• ISBN13: 9780521483490
• ISBN10: 0521483492
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-04-28
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Hunters and Collectors is about historical consciousness and environmental sensibilities in European Australia from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. It is in part a collective biography of the amateur scientists and humanists who have shaped the Australian historical imagination. Griffiths illuminates the way these avid collectors and discussants of the Australian land and its indigenous inhabitants have contributed a sense of national identity. He also shows how their activities feed into the political and environmental debates of the 1990s.

Table of Contents

Part I. Collection: 1. Hunting culture

2. Victorian skulduggery

3. The stone age

4. The nuclear family

Part II. Possession: 5. Past silences

6. The natural history of Melbourne

7. Land rites

8. Journeys to the centre

Part III. Preservation: 9. The discipline of memory

10. Keeping places

11. Progress through preservation

12. History and natural history