Overview

For the first time, the full story of asbestos use and tragic misuse in our country. This is a uniquely Australian story. We have consumed asbestos goods like few other countries, for example using it to build the ubiquitous fibro houses in new suburbs after World War II. But the story of asbestos goes back to a Gundagai mine in 1878 and the dreams of industry for the so-called 'magic mineral'. Touted as a safety material that would fireproof our clothes and end urban fires, asbestos was pushed hard for profit. Yet the 'evil effects of asbestos dust' were known even in the 19th century. With the greater understanding and prevalence of mesothelioma that accompanied the rising use of asbestos in the 20th century, it became the focus of hard-fought battles by workers and activists. The legacy of Australia's high level of asbestos consumption is one of the highest rates of asbestos exposure and asbestos-related disease in the world: 80 per cent of Australians today are estimated to have been exposed to asbestos at some point in their lives, with tens of thousands of cases of mesothelioma so far. A third of homes in New South Wales contain asbestos. It turns up in insulation and mulch. Historian James Watson tells the complex story one mineral has played in Australian life over the past 150 years. And so long as we live and work in the buildings previous generations built for us, asbestos will be a part of our lives. Deeply researched and written with clarity and force, Asbestos Nation is a timely and necessary reckoning with the immense industrial tragedy that's all around us.

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9781923451124

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James Watson is a historian at the Australian National University, where his doctoral thesis a social history of the use of asbestos in Australia won the Patrick Troy Memorial Prize. He previously worked as a paralegal in Sydney, where he attended the bedside testimonies of asbestos-disease sufferers and represented clients in court. His writing has appeared in History Australia and Labour History, and he is currently working on a biography of the geologist and Australian Museum director Robert Etheridge Jr. He lives in Canberra.

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