For some reason, I had expected a more ecologically framed book (perhaps it was the mention of ecosystems on the cover). But the historian McCalman offers us much more than that. This is a book of stories: ‘true stories’ you might say, although some are more honest than others, and at times it is difficult to tell the difference. McCalman looks at the reef through the prism of other people’s changing and diverse experiences and interpretations. It is no surprise to see how these perceptions change over time. More startling are the divergent perceptions of the same event by different participants. In ‘Bastion: Joseph Jukes’ Epiphanies’, McCalman relates how Jukes joyfully met with some ‘old friends’ – ‘tall, athletic men, bold and confident in their manner with energetic gestures and loud voices’. But where Jukes describes affection, laughter, and gentleness, his colleague sees a ‘savage, that black, brawny, knotty-limbed man-machine, running like an emu, and flinging up sand with his india-rubber-like toes, foaming at the mouth, and howling [like] … a mad dog’.

Unravelling European stories, fantastic and realistic, about the reef and the people who live there is one of the strengths of the book. The juxtaposition of such divergent views, from the sympathetic Joseph Jukes, Oswald Brierly, and James Morrill to the melodramatic John Curtis and Louis de Rougemont is a highly effective illustration of the power of the sensational over the sensitive. I have always been struck by the number of settler frontier stories of ‘native treachery’ that abound across Australia, particularly in Queensland, where the cultural practice of cannibalism added an additional layer of horror to European fears of Indigenous people. Like the many cases described in this book, Murdering Point at Kurrimine is an example of a site where the survivors of a shipwreck are typically reported as having been ‘attacked, murdered and dragged by the local aboriginals into the nearby sand dunes to be partially eaten’. I don’t recall an account of the reprisals exacted by the local constabulary in retaliation once they tracked down the tribe, but certainly no legal justice process seems to have occurred.

The Great Barrier Reef (photograph by Steve Evans)

What is clear from these early interactions between Europeans and Indigenous tribes, from the explorers Cook and Flinders to the castaways Eliza Fraser, James Morrill, Barbara Thompson, and Narcisse Pelletier, is that some stories find a more ready market than others. Stories of surviving native savagery sold well, whereas stories of white people taking on Indigenous ways of life and cultural practices could not be told for fear of social repercussions for the survivors (particularly the women). And it is the power of stories that also drives the second part of the book, which focuses on the evolution of our modern scientific and ecological appreciation of the reef. We often underestimate the power of stories in science, forgetting that hypotheses and theories are compelling and persuasive stories supported, to a greater or lesser extent, by evidence. While we rightly make much of the importance of evidence in this process, many a good story in science has required much less evidence than an unpopular story with a vast array of support.

It is no surprise, then, that one of biology’s greatest storytellers, Charles Darwin, pervades such a range of the stories in McCalman’s book. His seminal work on the structure and distribution of coral reefs inspired investigation and opposition among various naturalists, and, in turn, some of their own work (such as that of Joseph Jukes) inspired Darwin’s own later writings. This interlinking of themes and characters is one of the most satisfying elements of these disparate essays as we begin to see the connections, changes, and similarities between the stories and characters of the past and present. If some of the essays suffer from a slightly elongated chronology, and might have benefited from a tightening in their narrative focus, this probably reflects the richness of McCalman’s material. It is only in the tracking of scientific debates that the chronological and personal focus employed by McCalman comes under strain. In ‘Obsession: The Quest to Prove the Origins of the Reef’, it is easy to see why scientists themselves have moved away from this particular literary mode, favouring instead the synthesis of conceptual themes, which provides a more manageable package for the digestion of complex ideas.

Equally important, and inherently more digestible, are the stories of the natural-history writers who, as McCalman so amply illustrates, play such an important role in our modern appreciation of the reef’s natural beauty and fragility. While scientific writing operates almost entirely in the spectrum of the intellectual, the great legacy of our natural-history writers, such as Ted Banfield, connect much more effectively with the public by engaging on both an intellectual and an emotional level. Reef ecologist Len Webb recounts being reprimanded by the poet and conservationist Judith Wright for his anxiety about being ‘sentimental’ and of being told to ‘look it up in the dictionary’. The concept of ‘thought tinged with emotion’ instantly appealed to him, and it is this recognition that we need to combine emotional engagement with factual evidence that has powered the conservation movement, and some of our most effective scientific communicators, to this day.

‘This great natural wonder of ours, the subject of so much horror, delight, and pride, is dying.’

McCalman ends his story on a quietly despondent note. This great natural wonder of ours, the subject of so much horror, delight, and pride, is dying. Reef systems are notoriously vulnerable to climate change. In the five mass extinction events of the past, reef-building organisms have been devastated, often taking millions of years for entirely new reef-building species to reappear and replace the forms lost in the past. And yet, despite the growing wealth of evidence, climate change is one of these deeply unpopular stories that many of us just don’t want to hear. Our own role in the story is even less appealing. It is a sad ending to an inspiring story. We can only cling to the hope of an unexpected twist in the tale.

In the end, it is the characters McCalman introduces us to who endear us most to the reef, its past, present, and uncertain future. From the anxious explorers, to rescued castaways, troubled indigenes, eccentric scientists, and passionate activists, they all intrigue and captivate us. McCalman presents his characters warts and all, not troubling to steer away from their idiosyncrasies, foibles, and personal tragedies. Struggling writers, competitive scientists, murderers redeemed or not, falsifiers, sensationalists and cannibals are all presented in a dispassionate array that neither condemns nor condones. The historian retains his objective eye and carefully, as is the modern fashion, avoids speaking with the objective, impartial authorial voice, preferring instead to let the actions and voices of his subjects speak for themselves. McCalman provides no easy answers, but, like the very best of teachers, gives us instead the skills and knowledge to reach our own conclusions. More importantly still, he infuses his stories with the passion and concerns of his protagonists, making us care about, as well as understand, our relationship with the Great Barrier Reef and its people.