Australian surf culture is over a century old, and it still hasn't quite grown up. From its roots as an illegal pastime to its current incarnation as a professional sport, surfing's enduring appeal has always been the carefree, quintessentially Australian lifestyle that goes with it. Australian surf culture has always had competing impulses of chaos and order. For every Boot Hill Gang there is a Surf Life Saving Association; for every tragic drug disqualification, a World Title winner.
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Australian surf culture is over a century old, and it still hasn't quite grown up. From its roots as an illegal pastime to its current incarnation as a professional sport, surfing's enduring appeal has always been the carefree, quintessentially Australian lifestyle that goes with it. Australian surf culture has always had competing impulses of chaos and order. For every Boot Hill Gang there is a Surf Life Saving Association; for every tragic drug disqualification, a World Title winner.
From Tommy Tanna, Alick Wickham and Freddie Williams's pioneering surf lifestyles to the hedonism of 1950s beach culture and the Coolangatta Kids of the 1970s, to the professional machine that surfing in Australia has now become, this is the complete, no-holds-barred history of both sides of the story.
Published in conjunction with the organisation Surfing Australia, with forewords by Mark Richards and Layne Beachley (Australia's World Champion surfers), Surfing Australia is the definitive history of Australian surfing.