Parallel histories could be assembled from the Cape Colony of South Africa, Canada or New Zealand. The book illustrates and discusses the importance of this traffic in ideas and demonstrates how a Creole culture such as Australia analyses, absorbs, accepts, alters and rejects them. This is a rich area for investigation. Montana insists from his evidence that the 'Art Movement' in interior decoration was embraced by the broadest possible spectrum of the Australian middle classes. A wide range of illustrations support the thesis of assimilation.
More evidence also comes from the enormous attention paid to aesthetic matters in the popular press.
The footnotes bristle with references from the Argus , the Daily Mail , The Age , the Daily Telegraph and the Tasmanian Mail . It is in these analyses of consumption where the earlier design history models falter and contemporary historians excel. Co. Despite the largely urban nature of the 'Art Movement' in Britain, natural selection in Australia carried the Aesthetic taste to the new Melbourne suburbs such as Kew, Camberwell and Toorak and in Sydney, new developments including Ashfield and Annandale. There was also great interest amongst the Australian rural dynasties in South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria. Michael Bogle is a historian specialising in the histlry of design.