A detailed account of Australian explorer Ernest Powell Giles' five expeditions in South Australia, first published in 1889.

Pyne traces the impact of fire in Australia, from its influence on vegetation to its use by Aborigines and European settlers.“Mr. Pyne, showing what a historian deeply schooled in environmental science can contribute to our awareness of nature and culture, has produced a provocative work that is a major contribution to the literature of environmental studies.”—New York Times Book Review

The desert has a hypnotic presence in Australian culture, simultaneously alluring and repellent. The 'Centre' is distant and unknown to most Australians, yet has become a symbol of the country. This exciting book, highly illustrated in full colour, reveals the singular impact that the desert, both geographical and metaphorical, has had on Australian culture. At the heart of the book is the profound relationship that Aboriginal Australians have with the desert, and the complex ways in which they have been seen by white people in this context.

This work is a collection of compiled journals of Ernest Giles an Australian explorer who led five major expeditions to parts of South Australia and Western Australia. These journals were published, as each journey ended, as parliamentary papers by the Government of the Colony of South Australia. The book shows that Giles had the bravery, resources, and spirit of enterprise, a few things that are essential to an explorer. His story is lighted up sometimes by what he has to say about the few well-watered and delightful tracts of land through which he passed during his various expeditions. His explorations were essential links in the chain of Australian geographical research, and he has acted wisely in preparing a complete and accurate account of them. Maps and illustrations considerably increase the value of the work. "I have had to encounter a large area of desert country in the interior of the colonies of South Australia, and Western Australia, in my various wanderings; but I also discovered considerable tracts of lands watered and suitable for occupation." said the author.

The Road to Botany Bay, first published in 1987 and considered a classic in the field of cultural and historical geography, examines the poetic constitution of colonial society. Through a far-reaching exploration of Australia’s mapping, narrative description, early urbanism, and bush mythology, Paul Carter exposes the mythopoetic mechanisms of empire. A powerfully written account of the ways in which language, history, and geography influenced the territorial theater of nineteenth-century imperialism, the book is also a call to think, write, and live differently.