| | "This is a comprehensive and detailed study, plainly putting paid to any idea that a ‘young’ country like Australia does not have much planning history… It is an excellent collection of detailed and beautifully illustrated material demonstrating the importance of examining and publicly acknowledging positive outcomes of state-initiated planning. In so doing, it also provides a splendid resource for further comparative historical and international planning research."
Margo Huxley, International Planning Studies, 16:4, 426-428 November 2011
"...transcends the usually disjunctive approach of state-based histories to produce a comprehensive and well-written account of Australia’s planning history... an invaluable addition to Australia’s planning and heritage literature and will find wide use by readers from undergraduate students to those looking for comparative material or a starting point for their own research... its coverage and focus is unique which combined with the quality of its scholarship must make it a landmark book in Australia’s planning history literature."
Caroline Miller, Urban Policy and Research, Volume 29(2), May 2011, pp.216-218
"...this book is a masterly work of synthesis that will be invaluable as a general reference for many years to come. One can easily imagine Urban Nation becoming a foundational text in the syllabuses of university planning courses across the country. It is, moreover, written in a style that is as accessible to the general reading public as it is to a specialist audience. Urban Nation represents an invaluable contribution to our collective understandings of the history of planning in Australia. Its publication will undoubtedly have a ripple effect, not just upon the landscape of heritage, but also on broader debates about the nature of settlement in Australia.
Stephen Pascoe, History Australia, Vol 8 No 1
"This book is a must for town planners, or for historians interested in how our cities and towns have developed since the settlement of Australia...this book is beautifully written, extensively researched, and comprehensively illustrated, it concentrates solely on planning in Australia."
Eve Gibson, Journal of Northern Territory History, Issue 22 2011
"...highly detailed, comprehensive and finely crafted book...a gallery of wonderful illustrations, and many well-chosen quotes from the people behind the plans, as well as their critics...Freestone's historical investigations, his relentless search for traces of planning in an anti-planning environment, are very helpful in renewing our reflection on what planning is, what it can be and how it emerges out of local context and international networks. Hopefully, his readers pick up the message that planning can be more than development restrictions, that planning can be a powerful tool to create spatial quality, to
protect property values and, not to forget, to forge local and national identities."
Kristof Van Assche, Planning Perspectives, Vol. 25, No. 4, October 2010
“Freestone's canvass of more than two centuries of Australian urban output is a feat
nothing short of magisterial in itself. Ultimately, Urban Nation is a monumental step toward rectifying, in Freestone's words, the "skew towards architecture" within "formal recognition of Australia's built heritage.”
Christopher Vernon, Landscape Architecture Australia, November 2010
"The dreams and achievements of Australia's town planners are celebrated in Robert Freestone's handsomely illustrated book..."
Peter Spearritt, http://inside.org.au/, 7 October 2010
"Here at last is an authoritative, single-volume history of Australian planning, compact and well
Illustrated."
Australian Garden History, Vol22, No 2, October-December 2010
"A very substantial survey of Australia’s planning heritage by the doyen of Australian planning historians."
History News – Royal Historical Society Victoria, June-July 2010
"This is an excellent book in its structure and stunningly comprehensive coverage, its compaction of the material presented, its rich array of diagrams, plans, sketches and photographs and its accessible and engaging writing style. The abundance of images drawn from historical to present day sources is a delight…The author’s writing style is graceful, absorbing and information-packed, and perfectly matched to the ‘time poor’ reader. The only lingering regret was that this book was not published 20 years ago to become an acknowledged resource and reference text, which it is sure to now become. Five Stars."
Pem Gerner, Cityscape Creative Cities, Vol 41, Page 11, June 2010
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