Making rural Australia : an economic history of technical and institutional creativity, 1788-1860

著者

    • Raby, Geoff

書誌事項

Making rural Australia : an economic history of technical and institutional creativity, 1788-1860

Geoff Raby

Oxford University Press, 1996

大学図書館所蔵 件 / 全5件

この図書・雑誌をさがす

注記

Includes bibliographical references (p. 189-206) and index

内容説明・目次

内容説明

Making Rural Australia challenges two common by contradictory views of Australian history. One is the 'fatal shore': Australia was a place of horrible destitution and those miserable beginnings set the course for Australia of today. The other is the 'lucky country': European settlement began in a bountiful Arcadia and so wealth and prosperity have simply flowed forth, stifling creativity and technical and scientific endeavour. The book argues that successful European settlement of Australia owed a lot to its prodigious natural resources and to the technical and institutional creativity at the time. Australian farmers are shown to be adaptable and innovative. Such creativity was essential for the profitable exploitation of the land's riches. Early Australian agriculture looked slovenly and inefficient to European visitors. It was in fact a creative response to the economic and ecological challenges of occupying the continent. English farming practice is shown to have been an irrelevant standard by which to judge the efficiency of rural Australia. Australian farmers drew on the stock of global technical knowledge. Distance and information costs were not major obstacles to the rapid diffusion of foreign innovations to Australia. Making Rural Australia demonstrates that Australia's early innovativeness was essentially market-driven, with judicious government interventions from time to time in specific areas. When incentives and opportunities existed, Australian society found efficient technological solutions to the problem of turning Australia's resources into wealth.

目次

Acknowledgments. Preface. PART ONE: A LAND TRANSFORMED: TECHNICAL INNOVATIONS AND ADAPTATION:. 1.: No 'free lunches'. 2.: 'Wasting' the land. 3.: Judging the judges. 4.: Equipping the farm. 5.: Adding value on the station. PART TWO: BEYOND THE MARKET: INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS AND ADAPTATION:. 6.: Taking collective action. 7.: Supplying public goods. Conclusion: Creativity in early Australia. Appendix: A note on sources for technical change in farming. Bibliography. Index

「Nielsen BookData」 より

詳細情報

ページトップへ