Roff Smith

For a National Geographic, this coffee table book is much lower in quality than normal. The book is divided into 7 sections, generally regionally, working counter clockwise from Cape York all the way around to the starting point. Each section generally consists of 4-8 pages of text followed by numerous full-page photos. . I was surprised to find typos in almost every text section, excepting maybe section 4 or 5. Some sentences just.
Then a new paragraph starts. Captions were generally error free; that editor gets kudos.
Generally speaking, most photos were uninspiring. While the text built things up, the photos didn't often capture the text's spirit. Every NGS article I have on Australia has better photos. It seems this book was some way to capitalize on all the unused photos filling their vaults.
I estimate my own Geographic knowledge to be well above average (thanks to decades of NGS), and knew general concepts of Australian history and culture. This book added some meat onto those bones. I learned new facts, better contexts for my prior facts and have a clearer idea of how Australia fits into modern history.… (more)