Colin Simpson (2) (1908–1983)

What a bloody marvel. The New Australia is the kind of book languishing in second-hand bookstores, fairly unlikely to be picked up by anyone. After all, it's a chunky hardcover travel guide to Australia written (this second edition) in 1971. Many of the sights (and sites) have changed, as has the information required and the means of transmitting it. As a result, it is little read and didn't warrant a Goodreads page until I came along.

Fair enough, in a way. No-one will use this as their primary guide to Australia, nor should they. At the same time, it certainly has merit as a book for dipping into for those of us who plan most of our holidays around this ancient continent, if only for the descriptions of the rugged country in all of its magnificent and sometimes malevolent glory.

Yet this book's real appeal is as a time capsule. Simpson was a hugely influential 20th century journalist who pioneered major reforms when it came to libraries and authors' rights. As a journo and as an opinionated Australian, he chose not to write a guidebook in the modern Lonely Planet sense but instead a sort of travel diary that doubles as a useful companion for making the journey. As a result, his records of the country, from Port Arthur to Broome, are layered with his own perspective on a country in flux. Simpson made the journey by air and coach, both to avoid the cost of driving and to allow himself to focus on the experience. What's astonishing is just how much has changed in 51 years. The Sydney Opera House is nearing completion. Melbourne's Arts Centre has been designed but groundbreaking has not yet taken place. Japanese investment was beginning to pour into the country, only one generation after the monstrosities committed by the Japanese army toward our people. The advent of 4WD vehicles was rapidly transforming the notion of outback tourism, yet at the same time many sites were still "far from the beaten track" and questions were being raised about numbers that could be handled at notable sites such as Uluru - which, of course, we were still allowed to walk on! Indigenous Australians had only been citizens for five years, and vestiges of racially discriminatory laws were still being removed in some states such as Queensland. The White Australia Policy was largely still in effect, although some dismantling had begun in the mid-1960s; Simpson here comments that many Australians would like to see it removed entirely. Some towns were dwindling which are now entirely ghosts, while other small satellite cities that are mentioned for their charm now balloon with the weight of seachangers and treechangers. (And, although less relevant to this volume, we were still a few years away from the first state - South Australia - legalising intimacy between same-sex people.)

All of which makes reading this volume an experience that resonates with both our history and the present, overlapping each other constantly, while delighting those of us who sometimes wish we could live in a morally improved version of the 20th century rather than whatever fresh hell is currently taking place. A treasured find.… (altro)