Cirrus@Austlit

'Webster's account of the 1918 Rockhampton flood, the greatest local inundation of its kind in the twentieth century, is a well-researched and well-written account of an eminently local event. At first perusal, it is an essentially visual history, well produced and amplified through the use of close-ups of the city and its inhabitants. Such was the historic obsession with flooding and flood photographs that both local press and cinema profited by recycling available footage as a spectacle for consumption. To be sure, the visual narrative reflects photographic conventions of the day but is also a quintessentially Queensland experience, one which provides a local point of reference and an abundance of anecdotes, some of which have been recounted here.' (Introduction)