The Land Boomers

by Michael Cannon

Melbourne University Press, 1986, ISBN 0522837883, black and white photographic plates, black and white line drawings in text, paperback

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, previous owners inscription on half title page (see photographs)

“This ‘admirable and horrifying book’ (Walter Murdoch, in the Australian) became an immediate best-seller on its first appearance and is reissued to meet the continuing demand.
Victoria was made rich by gold, and populous by the immigrants who sought it.  The expanding economy saw speculation rewarded, and no apparent limits to expansion.  In the 1880s a land boom reached almost incredible heights of optimism, planning for developments which even now after three generations have not been achieved.  The following depression was catastrophic, perhaps the supreme crisis of the colony in the Victorian era.
Mr Cannon tells in vivid detail the story of the men who created or were bemused by the land boom, and of their personal triumph or destruction.  His diligent research traces the manoeuvres, evasions and manipulations of good men and bad, caught in probably the most concentrated example of the laissez-faire ‘boom-and-bust’ economy.
These are scarifying descriptions of the depression’s effect on the less wealthy and less powerful.”