tyranny of distance in australia
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From the initial decision to found a settlement in Australia, people have been faced with the problem of distance. The distance from England and other nations to Australia was immense and not easily traversed. However the distance to the outside world was not the only type of hardship or form of distance to cope with for those who lived in Australia, for the distance from one colony or port of call to the next was also a major factor. Geoffrey Blainey's "The Tyranny of Distance" and J. H. Bradley's "Distance within Australia: Was It a Tyrant" discuss this problem of distance. As the distance surrounding the settling of Australia was considered to be a problem and often cursed, does this make it a tyranny or something that shaped Australians into the type of people we are today?
Distance was not really the tyrant represented in the works by Blainey and Bradley; instead it could be seen as being more of a benevolent dictator. Distance and the problems associated with it were one of the major components that forged the backbone of the early settlers. The settlers were forced to become self sufficient as quickly as possible, because they could not rely on regular delivery of supplies occurring frequently enough...