The Town Like No Other
Robert McLean AM
In The Town Like No Other, Robert McLean blends memoir with social and economic history to capture Broken Hill’s ‘magic years’, 1950–1970.
He paints a portrait of a town that punched above its weight: a world-class mining centre with record incomes and productivity, and a tightly knit community where unions, managers and miners forged pragmatic partnerships. Alongside this, artists, migrants, educators and conservationists shaped a fiercely local yet nationally influential cultural identity.
Honest and nuanced, the book holds both civic pride and opportunity, and the town’s contradictions: married women excluded from work, Indigenous people pushed to the margins, and families grieving lives lost underground. Through lived experience and careful research, McLean captures Broken Hill at its zenith: resilient, inventive and deeply human.
- Release
- Mar-2026
- ISBN
- 9781764132121
- RRP (AUD)
- $32.99
- Pages
- 240
- Format
- Paperback
Robert McLean AM
Robert McLean AM is a Director Emeritus of McKinsey & Company. Having chaired The Nature Conservancy Australia for 20 years, he now serves as Vice Co-Chairman of TNC Asia Pacific.
Bakers Lane Books
Founded in 2025, Bakers Lane Books is an independent publisher of quality Australian fiction and non-fiction.
