Looking at Darwin's past: material evidence of European settlement in tropical Australia

Abstract

“Looking at Darwin’s Past” explores the history of the most isolated of Australia’s cities yet also, for many Australians, the most exotic. … It is about the efforts of Europeans and their descendants to create and live in Australia’s only tropical capital as revealed in historical structures and sites. Despite its remoteness from other major population centres in Australia, what for Europeans was a harsh climate, natural disasters and the devastation of war, Darwin’s current cultural landscape includes many places that can be viewed as historical evidence. The book shows how such evidence can be interpreted within the wider context of white Australian culture. The book is well illustrated with photographs, drawing, plans and maps.