I can't surf.  I'm not the greatest swimmer and I certainly can't sit all day on the beach. Like Woody Allen, "I don't tan, I stroke." Yet I feel keenly connected to the coast and enjoy living near the beach.  I can look at a map and see the nearest beach and headland named and it's comforting to be able to pinpoint my place so precisely.

Ian Hoskins'  new book  traces the history of human occupation of the NSW coast commencing with indigenous people, taking in the arrival of Europeans, the creation of a colony and the rapid exploitation of coastal resources with the development of shipping, fishing and other maritime industries.

He examines the change in European attitudes to the coast, occurring from the beginning of the 20th century, evidenced by the rise of popularity in beach bathing, surfing and the emergence of the tradition of seaside holidays, from which grows coastal real estate developments and over-developments - with consequent threats to natural and historic heritage.

Stretching over 400 pages Hoskins' work is always meticulously researched and he draws out points of poignancy and drama in his narrative. For example he discusses the fledgling colony's need for lime to construct the fine colonial buildings of Sydney. That need can only be satisfied, ironically, by excavating and burning the vast and centuries old aboriginal middens around Newcastle.

He traces the perils of sea voyages and illustrates these with examples of ships and people lost, and ships that are thought lost but show-up, weeks later, having been blow off course by bad weather. With no means to communicate their fate family and friends are left to simply hope for the best when waving a traveller away from the dock. So real is the threat of shipwreck in 19th century coastal shipping that Hoskins suggests that a person from that time who saw Dupain's famous photograph, Sunbaker, would have read it as an image of a shipwrecked sailor rather than the swimmer we see luxuriating in the sun.

Coast is a very beautiful book rich in photographs and paintings. Even the endpapers are significant with the front giving a map of the coast and the back overlaying a modern map of the coast with the names of the indigenous territories. I enjoyed this book and closed it with a feeling that the author had offered scholarship and interpretation that made this history engaging and entertaining, as well as factual and informative.