Climate, Science, and Colonization: Histories from Australia and New Zealand

Front Matter....Pages i-xxii
Introduction....Pages 1-16
Front Matter....Pages 17-17
Australasia: An Overview of Modern Climate and Paleoclimate during the Last Glacial Maximum....Pages 19-42
“The usual weather in New South Wales is uncommonly bright and clear … equal to the finest summer day in England”: Flood and Drought in New South Wales, 1788–1815....Pages 43-59
Extreme Weather and ENSO: Their Social and Cultural Ramifications in New Zealand and Australia in the 1890s....Pages 61-80
Pioneer Settlers Recognizing and Responding to the Climatic Challenges of Southern New Zealand....Pages 81-96
Front Matter....Pages 97-97
“For the sake of a little grass”: A Comparative History of Settler Science and Environmental Limits in South Australia and the Great Plains....Pages 99-117
Debating the Climatological Role of Forests in Australia, 1827–1949: A Survey of the Popular Press....Pages 119-136
Science, Religion, and Drought: Rainmaking Experiments and Prayers in North Otago, 1889–1911....Pages 137-155
Front Matter....Pages 157-157
Farming on the Fringe: Agriculture and Climate Variability in the Western Australian Wheat Belt, 1890s to 1980s....Pages 159-176
“Soothsaying” or “Science?”: H. C. Russell, Meteorology, and Environmental Knowledge of Rivers in Colonial Australia....Pages 177-193
Imported Understandings: Calendars, Weather, and Climate in Tropical Australia, 1870s–1940s....Pages 195-211
Destabilizing Narratives of the “Triumph of the White Man over the Tropics”: Scientific Knowledge and the Management of Race in Queensland, 1900–1940....Pages 213-231
Australasian Airspace: Meteorology, and the Practical Geopolitics of Australasian Airspace, 1935–1940....Pages 233-249
Epilogue: Future Research Directions....Pages 251-253
Back Matter....Pages 255-280