Native to the Nation: Disciplining Landscapes and Bodies in Australia. By Allaine Cerwonka. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004. 269p. $74.95 cloth, $24.95 paper.

It is unusual for a book on Australia to be written by an outsider and published by an American press. This is to be welcomed. Outsiders are often free of local myths and attitudes, which are well entrenched in Australia, despite its character as a relatively new nation. Allaine Cerwonka did intensive fieldwork in two inner-city suburbs of Melbourne, Australia's second city. As a resident for 10 years in neighboring Carlton, I found her sensitivity to the nuances of the complex areas of East Melbourne and Fitzroy quite unusual.