From Deserts the Prophets Come (The Creative Spirit in Australia 1788-1972)

In the early 1970s Geoffrey Serle presented a series of groundbreaking lectures on Australian cultural history. These became From Deserts the Prophets Come, first published in 1973. In writing this book, Serle relates in his preface to the original edition, ‘I was aiming to cut a new path for teaching and research in Australian history, to bring cultural history into the general discourse of Australian historians, and to bridge the gap between general history and the major works in literary, art, musical and architectural history which have appeared in recent years’. Serle’s articulation of the particular relations between the arts, politics, economics and society, within Australia, and what he called his ‘rudimentary attempt at a theory of cultural growth’, remain important both for students of Australian cultural history and for more general readers interested in how art is shaped by, and shapes in turn, the society around it. This new edition contains an introduction by Serle’s student and eminent Australian cultural historian John Rickard, who finds the book also ‘remains a lively, comprehensive and informative introduction to Australian cultural history’.