Invisible Country: Southwest Australia: Understanding a Landscape (Bill Bunbury, UWA Publishing)

Bill Bunbury is a notable WA broadcaster and author who has specialised in local, particularly Indigenous, histories since the 1980s. In Invisible History, Bunbury examines the ways European settlement has shaped Southwest Australia, a biodiversity hotspot of rivers, forests and coastal plains. Bunbury contributes to the complex narratives of the environment since European settlement through extensive oral histories, excerpts of which are transcribed and included throughout the book. As well as introductory and concluding chapters, which give a broader historical context, four case studies each detail one particular environmental change, including the intervention in the Donnelly and Vasse Rivers, the clearing of bushland near to the southern coast for paddocks, and salinity. As Bunbury notes in the introduction, the book is written in a style reminiscent of a radio script, with long quotes from his sources interspaced with his own sparse narration. This anecdotal style might appeal to some, but at times I wished Bunbury had taken a more heavy hand in shaping the text, as he does in the first and last chapters. This book will appeal to readers of Australian and Indigenous histories, natural history and those with a special interest in WA.

Brad Jefferies is the news editor at Books+Publishing

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Reviews