Geoffrey Blainey is seventy-three years old and has published thirty-two books. Since his last book was a history of the world, one might have assumed that he had reached the end of his career. But he is not done yet. He moves, as he has always done, from grand speculation to what might be thought trifles – in this case, the details of everyday life in Australia from the 1850s to 1914.

Here there are matters that have been treated in no other history book: the brand names of kerosene, the varieties of apples and horses, the uses of used candle-boxes, and the handiwork of Robert Mennicke, blacksmith of North Wagga, the ‘Stradivarius of cattle bells’, whose products could be heard nearly ten kilometres away when the night was frosty.