Making Modern Melbourne

Wednesday, 10 December 2014

Jenny Lee’s Making Modern Melbourne has been sitting by my bedside for far too long. I finally picked it up (seriously for a change) the other day and knocked it off in a flash. It’s a handy little history of Melbourne from its pre-European Aboriginal period, through the decidedly unplanned and unofficial European settlement, the Gold Rush, the Marvellous Melbourne era, then a long period of stagnation prior to today’s multicultural sprawling city of suburbs.

And finally I know something about the ‘Kulin Nation,’ the group of Aboriginal tribes whom I seem to hear acknowledged several times a week at Melbourne functions.

The book is out of print and in a very unhandy pocket size, too small to appreciate the half tone photographs, but still an interesting read.