Environment, Race, and Nationhood in Australia ─ Revisiting the Empty North

This new study offers a timely and compelling account of why past generations of Australians have seen the north of the country as an empty land, and how those perceptions of Australia’s tropical regions impact on current policy and shaped the self-image of the nation. It considers the origins of these concerns - from fears of invasion and moral qualms about leaving resources lying idle, from apprehensions about white nationhood coming under international censure and misgivings about the natural attributes of the north- and elucidates Australians’ changing appreciations of the natural environments of the north, their shifting attitudes toward race and their unsettled conceptions of Asia.

Russell McGregor is currently Adjunct Professor of History at James Cook University in Townsville, Queensland, Australia. His publications include the award-winning books Imagined Destinies: Aboriginal Australians and the Doomed Race Theory and Indifferent Inclusion: Aboriginal People and the Australian Nation.