Life In The Cities
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Good
In the booming, dust-choked streets and railway yards of colonial Australia, a new civilisation was being forged — and Life in the Cities, the third volume in Michael Cannon's landmark Australia in the Victorian Age series, captures every gritty, extraordinary detail of that transformation. Drawing on a rich archive of period photographs, official records, and contemporary accounts, Cannon chronicles the relentless urban expansion of Melbourne, Sydney, and their sister cities during the latter half of the nineteenth century, painting a vivid portrait of a society straining under the pressures of rapid industrialisation, mass immigration, and civic ambition. Cannon's methodology is both meticulous and accessible, presenting the struggles of the working class — the navvies, factory hands, and street traders — alongside the grand schemes of merchants and politicians with equal-handed authority. His prose cuts through the romanticised myths of the colonial era to uncover the raw, human reality of city-building: the punishing labour, the squalid tenements, the soaring public architecture, and the fierce social debates that shaped modern Australia. For readers who believe they know the story of how Australia's great cities rose from the earth, Cannon's account will leave them questioning everything they thought they understood.
Author: Michael Cannon
Format: Hardback
Genre: Australian history
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Good
In the booming, dust-choked streets and railway yards of colonial Australia, a new civilisation was being forged — and Life in the Cities, the third volume in Michael Cannon's landmark Australia in the Victorian Age series, captures every gritty, extraordinary detail of that transformation. Drawing on a rich archive of period photographs, official records, and contemporary accounts, Cannon chronicles the relentless urban expansion of Melbourne, Sydney, and their sister cities during the latter half of the nineteenth century, painting a vivid portrait of a society straining under the pressures of rapid industrialisation, mass immigration, and civic ambition. Cannon's methodology is both meticulous and accessible, presenting the struggles of the working class — the navvies, factory hands, and street traders — alongside the grand schemes of merchants and politicians with equal-handed authority. His prose cuts through the romanticised myths of the colonial era to uncover the raw, human reality of city-building: the punishing labour, the squalid tenements, the soaring public architecture, and the fierce social debates that shaped modern Australia. For readers who believe they know the story of how Australia's great cities rose from the earth, Cannon's account will leave them questioning everything they thought they understood.