Although many studies have documented the movement of Europeans to, and their impact upon, their ‘New World’ of the Americas and Australasia, prior to this book no overview of the Western European perceptions of that New World had appeared. With this book, however, Dr Powell has both provided that overview and suggested how those perceptions need to be considered in more detail in future research into the processes implicit in European settlement of new lands.

Concern for the role of environmental perception (the knowledge of and attitudes to the habitat of man) in explaining the human imprint on the global environment has become an integral part of geographical research since the mid-1960s. Dr Powell’s earlier works (Public Lands of Australia Felix, 1970; Yeomen and Bureaucrats, 1974; Environmental Management in Australia 1788- 1914, 1976) had developed that concern in the context of Australian land settlement. Now he has broadened his research to examine one major aspect of that concern – the role of images and image-makers in nineteenth century European migrations to North America, Australia and New Zealand.