Freg J. Stokes is a writer and mapmaker from Australia.
With the spread of coronavirus now global, arbitrary travel bans such as those implemented by the Australian government are ineffective and nourished by old xenophobic anxieties. The solution to this crisis can only be a coordinated, international effort.
With the British settlement of Australia, Europe’s long history of overseas convict transportation entered one of its most bizarre chapters, as an entire continent was excised as an open-air prison for England’s criminalized lower classes.