Iron country : unlocking the Pilbara

Australia’s largest export earner, the iron ore industry has moved to the centre of our national economic life. In Iron country: Unlocking the Pilbara, historian David Lee charts Australia’s modern iron age from the lifting of the iron ore export embargo in the early 1960s to the China boom of the early twenty-first century.As this timely and carefully-researched study demonstrates, there was nothing inevitable about the rise of the Pilbara to become the jewel in the crown of Australia’s mining industry. A daunting series of political, commercial, financial, engineering and infrastructure challenges all had to be overcome. Later on, the foundation Pilbara projects endured long years of low iron ore prices. Those who fall back on the providential nature of Australia’s resource endowment or mere ‘luck’ to understand the modern success of this vital industry obscure much more than they explain.