As an academic, Yvonne has always been attracted to little known characters and facts and exploring, not the internet, but what came before – those dusty diaries and artefacts residing in the bowels of libraries and museums – rather like finding gold!
She has been interested in those many European early scientists who came to Australia but were not really given much of a chance. It was openly stated that ‘a British man was preferred.’ Mikluho Maclay, born in Russia, educated in Germany and marrying an Australian was a wonderful example of this injustice. Finding him for her latest publication provided her with a life of a man who dared to dream. She found him inspirational.
Yvonne previous publications have been in other fields. She has written several best-selling cookbooks and published many scientific papers in her specialist field of nutrition. So it was a challenge to write a book about a fascinating character, well-known in Europe but not here, with an incredible life and right outside her comfort zone. But she still chose to use a scientific format since she believes that provides a disciplined presentation of fact.
Book by Yvonne Webb
