|
|
|
Book Review
| Paul Sinclair, The Murray: a River and its People, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2001. pp. xii + 303. $32.95 paper.
|
| Environmental history has flourished in Europe, the United States and Australia in the last 20 years or so. As Donald Worster has noted, in measuring the impact of nature on human life, environmental historians have explored the structure of past natural environments, focused on the effect of technology on ecosystems, and examined the myths and representation that groups and individuals have constructed about nature. |
1
|
|
In this ambitious study of the Murray River and the land surrounding it, Paul Sinclair has sought to explore all three of these subjects. First, he has demonstrated how some of the earliest Europeans in the area, namely artists like Becker and Davis, sought to understand the Murray in its own 'wild' and natural terms. However, the building of dams and the introduction of irrigated farming brought dramatic changes, which impacted on water quality, reflected in rising salinity levels. The changes to the river flow also damaged the red gums and black box trees, which grew on and near the banks. The growing scarcity of native species fish, most notably Murray Cod, especially since the 1960s, was a further sign of changes to and the decline of the ecosystem. |
2
|
|
A third central theme of this book is an exploration of what Paul Sinclair calls 'a triumphant development narrative' (p. 36). Nineteenth and twentieth century Australians were committed to a belief that nature could be tamed, regulated and made 'useful' and in the Murray-Darling context that meant the creation of extensive irrigation systems. Moreover, he provides convincing evidence to suggest that what made the story of progress sustainable, even as the ecological consequences of irrigation became more and more apparent, was the emergence of a tourist industry that promoted a story of the River's diversity and regeneration and the leisure possibilities it offered. But the promotion and acceptance of a legend of pioneer progress came at a cost. Not only did it encourage an attitude of negligence to ecological decline amongst the European inhabitants of the farms and towns along the riverbanks but it also required the cultivation of indifference to Aboriginal presence. And so Sinclair charts the failure of contemporary Europeans to acknowledge either the significance or indeed the existence of the site of the 1841 massacre of Aborigines at Lake Victoria. With restrained passion he also tells the story of how the contents of the extensive Aboriginal middens along the Murray were used by Europeans to build the 'oven' roads, a sign of their ignorance of and indifference to long Aboriginal occupation. |
3
|
|
Paul Sinclair bases his arguments on conventional written sources. But his narrative also draws on observations and interviews resulting from the author's own pilgrimage down the Murray by canoe. Because of this the book in some ways reminds me of Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi. It too was based on the author's voyage down a legendary waterway and its central theme also focused on decline and decay. In any case, Paul Sinclair's book constitutes a powerful case study in Australian environmental history. Apart from its theme of environmental degradation, it demonstrates yet again the exclusive nature of that powerful legend that emphasises European progress and the achievements of the 'pioneers'. |
4
|
|
Simon Schama criticised environmental historiography for focussing too consistently on a particular argument and theme — one that stresses the destruction of pristine ecosystems by European technology and industry. For him what matters is understanding the long and complex interaction between people and nature, and the exploration of our changing understandings of nature as culture. As I have suggested above, Sinclair's book fits into the genre that Schama criticises, for it is largely a story of destruction and loss. I rather suspect, however, that those who live along the Murray were and are less indifferent to the environmental changes than he suggests, that evidence of a caring for country is stronger than he allows. |
5
|
|
There is also some editorial carelessness in this book. A few of the works cited in the endnotes, for example, R.M. and C.H. Bernd's From Black to White in South Australia, and Richard White's article on environmental history, do not appear with full citations in the bibliography. Libby Robin, cited as the author of an article on the rise of ecological consciousness will be surprised to learn that a Libby Robbin is listed as the author of a PhD thesis on the Little Desert and the rise of ecological consciousness in Victoria. |
6
|
|
These criticisms aside, this is a readable and highly valuable contribution to Australian environmental and rural history. |
7
|
| | | | |
| University of Sydney |
RICHARD WATERHOUSE | |
|
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|