'In her new book, Anna Johnson investigates how the exchange of ideas from the late eighteenth century between the Antipodes and the British Empire were to have a profound influence on the global constitution of knowledges, enabled by the rise of popular print culture. Her premise is that the Australian colonies, and New South Wales and Tasmania in particular, opened up new metaphorical and literal sites for British social experimentation, notably about the human condition, Indigenous peoples, and the natural environments of the new southern world.' (Publication summary)