Coast: a History of the New South Wales Edge, NewSouth, Sydney, 2013
From Eden to Byron Bay the New South Wales coast is more than 2000 kilometres long, with 130 estuaries, 100 coastal lakes and a rich history. This, the first history written of the New South Wales coast, traces our relationship with this stretch of land and sea starting millennia ago when Aboriginal people feasted on shellfish and perfected the art of building bark canoes, to our present obsession with the beach as a place to live or holiday. (blurb)
The book covers marine biology, early whaling industry, fear of invasion leading to the creation of an Australian navy, on to surfing and fishing. the fear of seaborne invasion that led to the creation of a navy of our own in 1911 and on to the rise of our unstoppable enthusiasm for surfing and fishing. Reviewed in Inside History, the Sydney Morning Herald, Inside Story, discussed on the ABC.