His writing is a delight. The lectures abound with fascinating ideas, and one finds oneself gently stimulated to think about familiar things in new and interesting ways. I'd like to have heard them, and it's a pleasure to read them. The lectures are about the way in which we think about ourselves and our country. These work well.
Landscape is discussed provocatively.
His discussion of domestic and public architecture avoids the cliches which can surround this topic and abounds with insights and ironies. In exploring Australia's relations with the world, he argues persuasively that Australia was more open to the rest of the world in the nineteenth century than it was during much of the twentieth. His other three lectures are less internally coherent, but full of ideas and evocative vignettes. There is a good exploration of how bitter sectarianism was managed so that hostility stopped short of bloodshed. While we accept the bourgeois virtue of pleasure in moderation, we are worried by excess.