A Million Wild Acres

About this book

Thirty years ago a bomb landed in the field of Australian consciousness of itself and its land in the form of Eric Rolls A Million Wild Acres. The ensuing explosion has caused extensive and heated debate ever since amongst historians ecologists environmentalists poets and writers. Now reissued in a commemorative 30th Anniversary Edition for a new generation of readers and against the backdrop of renewed and urgent concern about climate change it includes Tom Griffiths seminal essay The Writing of A Million Wild Acres and a foreword by Les Murray drawn from his work Eric Rolls and the Golden Disobedience. Here is a contentious story of men and their passion for land; of occupation and settlement; of destruction and growth. By following the tracks of these pioneers who crossed the Blue Mountains into northern New South Wales Eric Rolls poet farmer and self-taught naturalist has written the history of European settlement in Australia. He evokes the ruthlessness and determination of the first settlers who worked the land a land they knew little about.