Surfing Australia: A Complete History of Surfboard Riding in Australia

The definitive guide to Australia's surfing history, published in conjunction with Surfing Australia. Australian surf culture is over a century old, and it still hasn't grown up. From its roots as an illegal pastime to its current incarnation as a professional sport, surfing's enduring appeal has always been the carefree, quintessentially Australian lifestyle that goes with it. Australian surf culture has always had competing impulses of chaos and order. For every Boot Hill Gang there is a Surf Life Saving Association; for every tragic drug disqualification, a World Title winner. From Tommy Tanna, Alick Wickham and Freddie Williams's pioneering surf lifestyles to the hedonism of 1950s beach culture, the Coolangatta Kids of the 1970s, to the eventual professionalised machine that surfing in Australia has now become, this is the complete, no-holds-barred history of both sides of the story. With forewords by Mark Richards and Layne Beachley, Australia's World Champion surfers, this book is the definitive history of surfing in Australia.