Böcker av Alan Atkinson

A memoir about a father who lost his wife and three children in a terrible accident

High Lean Country captures the rich history and haunting character of the New England region of northern New South Wales.The authors explore how memory - of land, of family, of patterns of life on the other side of the world - has influenced the identity of New England. They also consider how the high country itself has shaped its people and their sense of regional uniqueness. In doing so, this book sets a new direction for understanding Australia as a whole.Weaving together the histories of human settlement, economic, social and cultural development, as well as interactions with the environment, High Lean Country shows how colonial settlers strived for decades to literally create a new England. It traces the story of the graduates of Oxford and Cambridge who turned their hands to sheep husbandry and developed a squattocracy, the establishment of schools and other institutions, and the cultivation of traditional arts. It also examines the early colonial bushranging period, and a history of not always friendly relations between white settlers and the local Aboriginal population.A project of the Heritage Futures Research Centre at the University of New England, High Lean Country is a fascinating study of this distinctive Australian high country.

During the period from around 1815 to the early 1870s Australia began to find its place. The pace of colonial expansion accelerated while a kind of democracy emerged. More than a story of geography and politics, this title describes the way people thought and felt - what drove them, what troubled them.