Landprints

This is an extraordinary 1997 collection of essays about landscape. With a lively and engaging style, George Seddon considers everything from creating a garden in Freemantle, to locating ancient plants while wandering in a far North Queensland rainforest to analysing the geological features on either side of the tram tracks in Collingwood. Yet while the book celebrates Australia, and covers many topics that seem familiar and everyday, it is challenging and provocative. Seddon is acutely aware of the moral and environmental aspects of history and is able to present local and regional history on a grand scale. Landprints reflects a lifetime devoted to questions about landscape: the ways we use and abuse the land, how Australian landscapes are different from European landscapes and how this land makes those who live on it uniquely, if ambiguously, Australian.