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Darwin

Series: Cities Series
3.76 goodreads logo

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( 58 ratings, 12 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Darwin by Tess Lea provides a vivid portrayal of the multicultural city of Darwin, revealing its rich history and strategic significance. The book delves into Darwin’s evolution, addressing the social and environmental challenges that have shaped its identity. Through compelling narrative, Lea captures the essence of a place marked by both resilience and change.
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Format: Paperback / softback
$3799
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This book may appeal to you if you're intrigued by the cultural, social, and political landscape of the Northern Territory of Australia. Tess Lea's work provides a deep dive into the history and unique dynamics of this region, offering insightful perspectives that combine both historical and contemporary analysis. If you're drawn to the complexities of place and identity in Australia, this exploration will captivate you.

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This is a book about the textures, colours, sounds and frontier stories of Darwin, Australia's smallest and least-known capital city.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Darwin is a survivor, you have to give it that. Razed to the ground four times in its short history, it has picked itself up out of the debris to not only rebuild but grow. Darwin has known catastrophes and resurrections; it has endured misconceived projects and birthed visionaries. To know Darwin, to know its soul, you have to listen to it, soak in it, taste it.

This is a book about the textures, colours, sounds and frontier stories of Darwin, Australia's smallest and least-known capital city.

Darwin is a place that has to be felt to be known. Readers will sense the heat, smell the odours, hear the birds and the frogs, encounter the mosquitoes, fathom racial politics and learn how the moon-base that is Darwin is kept alive. They will understand that Darwin is a military garrison and a portal into Australia's possible futures.

In a new postscript, Tess Lea suggests how Darwin might deliver lessons for living under the climatically assaulting and culturally uncomfortable times of the Anthropocene.

'...great insight and vivid descriptions.' β€” Margaret Smith, The Canberra Times

'Tess Lea's book on her home town...delves into the fabric, colours, history, geography and lifestyles of this "frontier" town with great insight and vivid descriptions.' β€” Margaret Smith, The Sydney Morning Herald

'Read it, visit Darwin, read it again. It's that good.' β€” Stephen Muecke, Flinders University

Series: Cities Series

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  • Hobart
    MONA has done a lot more than just rescue a flagging tourism economy. It has changed the city's body language, teaching it to stand up straight and look others squarely in the eye, even putting a swagger in its step. Peter Timms leads us on a journey through his adopted city of Hobart, Australia's smallest, most southerly, least prosperous, but...
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  • Sydney
    As I set out from the city's southern end, the sandstone walls beneath the Central railway line still held the day's heat ... The moon rose from the invisible harbour into a sky of such a deep royal blue it was almost hard to believe in. The street smelled of low tide. For all its beauty, the city could return...
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  • Perth
    ...we rarely travel far to swim. We occasionally cross the river to Leighton or Cottesloe, where the white sand squeaks underfoot and the champagne foam in the shallows tingles the legs and fizzes over the shoreline and makes children giddy with delight ... the cirrus clouds above the horizon often resemble passages of perfect cursive script written in soft white...
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  • Darwin
    Darwin is a survivor, you have to give it that. Razed to the ground four times in its short history, it has picked itself up out of the debris to not only rebuild but grow. Darwin has known catastrophes and resurrections; it has endured misconceived projects and birthed visionaries. To know Darwin, to know its soul, you have to listen...
    Paperback
    $3799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Melbourne
    Melbourne's a city you get to know from the inside outβ€”you have to walk it to love it. My favourite time to do this is at night. That's when you capture glimpses of people eating, laughing, talking, arguing, watching TV and reading through half-open terrace house doors and windows... It is a city of inside places and conversation. Of intimacy....
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  • Brisbane
    I keep coming back to the light of Brisbane. If you are born into it, this palette of gentle pinks and oranges at dawn and dusk, the blast white of midday in summer, the lemon luminescence of mid-morning and mid-afternoon, you keep it with you and measure all other light by it. If you live away from it, then step...
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Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Darwin by Tess Lea provides a rich exploration of her hometown, capturing its essence through vivid descriptions and insightful analysis of its history, geography, and culture.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781742237077

Publisher: NewSouth Publishing

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 01 November 2020

Country: Australia

Imprint: NewSouth Publishing

Audience: General / adult, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 20.0mm

Width: 110.0mm

Height: 177.0mm

Weight: 333g

Pages: 320

About the Author

Tess Lea was born, raised, evacuated, schooled and otherwise taught key life lessons in Darwin. She is an anthropologist whose work both explores why Indigenous social policies so often fail and enacts practical collaborations for doing something about these failurescapes. As her book suggests, she has tough answers for why things fail – answers which suggest a military industrial extractive settler complex still needs to be reckoned with – yet she also understands why Darwin the place gets under your skin.

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    Bureaucrats and Bleeding Hearts takes you on an intimate journey into the lives of people armed with the task of ending Australian Aboriginal disadvantage in the frontier north of Australia. Taking a fresh look at longstanding issues, Lea examines the culture of bureaucracy, its need to create the look of action, and how intelligent inhabitants uphold the apparatus of government...
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