The Pilbara: From the Deserts Profits Come (Book review)
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Abstract
This is a serious book by a serious scholar, telling a story that is central to the Australian experience with a fluent ease of literary style. The focus of Ellem's story – the Pilbara iron mines, their workers and the unions that have represented them – is one of which most of us are at least dimly aware. When visiting any capital city airport it is hard not to notice the army of Fly-In, Fly-Out (FIFO) workers heading to or from the Pilbara. Yet, as Ellem points out, the Pilbara's isolation and its comparatively small workforce cause most to under-estimate its importance. A similar point could be made of mining more generally, an industry responsible for the great bulk of exports and almost 9 per cent of national Gross Domestic Product. The economic worth of the industry is also indicated by the fact that since 2016 the increase in the value of coal and gas exports has exceeded the entire value of agricultural exports. To this industry, and most particularly the iron ore sector, Ellem brings an understanding accrued not over years but decades. As the book's opening sentences note, Ellem first arrived in the Pilbara ‘on the morning of 26 June 2001’, intending to make a short visit the basis for ‘an academic paper’ (vii). Instead, he found himself ‘hooked’ by the industry and the vastness of its landscape. This book is the result.
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Australian Historical Studies
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50
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1
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Historical studies
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Bowden, B, The Pilbara: From the Deserts Profits Come, Australian Historical Studies, 2019, 50 (1), pp. 131-132