'Hunters and Collectors is about historical consciousness and environmental sensibilities in European Australia from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. It is in part a collective biography of the amateur scientists and humanists who have shaped the Australian historical imagination. Griffiths illuminates the way these avid collectors and discussants of the Australian land and its indigenous inhabitants have contributed a sense of national identity. He also shows how their activities feed into the political and environmental debates of the 1990s.' (Publication summary)