New title available - CANBERRA IV. INVENTING A CAPITAL (1907-1938)

Building the 'bush capital' was no small feat. The path was often diverted by jurisdictional jealousies, which bled into the painful processes of site selection and the choice of a design. The treatment of Walter and Marion Griffin and the dilution of their plan is a tragedy, which still polarises opinions to this day.

Canberra IV shows how development stalled during WWI, ramped up in the 1920s, but dampened down again during the Great Depression. The builders of Canberra never really had a clear run at what they were doing. This volume relays the carnage of the land resumptions and explains how flawed administrators such as David Miller, John Sulman, John Butters, and Charles Daley all struggled with limited budgets and unrealistic timeframes.

The fourth volume in James McDonald's Canberra series reveals some disconcerting truths. The capital was conceived within the context of the White Australia Policy. Despite the pomp of the very British celebrations for the opening of the provisional Parliament House, he shows how some ugly fractures within Australian society were exposed; in race, religion, and class. Nothing evinces this so clearly as the largely ignored sovereignty protest of Nangar and Ooloogan in May 1927.

This volume ($45), as well as Volumes I, II & III are available for sale at the centre.