The Lie of the Land

In post-colonial politics, argues the author of this book, we will need to have to hand a different conception of the land and our relationship to it - a philosophy that takes account of the lie of the land. He develops his argument through an examination of three figures - the Venetian painter Giogione, the Australian anthropologist T.G.H. Strehlow, and the first Surveyor General of South Australia, William Light - whose historical relationship to one another is not at first sight obvious but who, it emerges, share common interests. Carter's argument is one which he illuminates not only historically, but poetically, for running through the book is a fundamental image - that of the storm, which symbolizes our new relationship to the ground.