Australia in the 1950s is Australia now

In the 1950s, Australia experienced a boom in material wealth, brought on by the official formation of the Australian state and by the discovery of the countries vast mineral resources. Thus, many of the towns of its interior spring up in the 1950s, seeded by immigration and usually placed near to a mining operation or ranch. Bryson notes that the small towns of Australia never left this lucrative decade. While the big cities on Australia's coast, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth, have all swollen into modern cities, and exist very much in the computerized, commercialized world of the twenty-first century, the tiny towns that fill the rest of the country are still sporting decor from the previous century. Bryson finds it charming. As he is driving through the bucolic farming country around Canberra, he finds that all of the radio stations are...