Australians: Origins to Eureka

Publisher's synopsis

In this widely acclaimed volume, bestselling author Thomas Keneally brings to life the vast range of characters who have formed our national story.

Convicts and First Nations, settlers and soldiers, patriots and reformers, bushrangers and gold seekers; it is from their lives and their stories that he has woven a vibrant history to do full justice to the rich and colourful nature of our unique national character.

The story begins by looking at European occupation through Aboriginal eyes as we move between the city slums and rural hovels of eighteenth century Britain and the shores of Port Jackson. We spend time on the low-roofed convict decks of transports, and we see the bewilderment of the Eora people as they see the first ships of turaga, or ‘ghost people’. We follow the daily round of Bennelong and his wife Barangaroo, and the tribulations of warrior Windradyne. Convicts like Solomon Wiseman and John Wilson find their feet and even fortune, while Henry Parkes’ arrival as a penniless immigrant gives few clues to the national statesman he was to become. We follow the treks of the Chinese diggers – the Celestials – to the goldfields, and revolutionaries like Italian Raffaello Carboni and African American John Joseph bring us the drama of the Eureka uprising.

Were the first European mothers whores or matriarchs? How did this often cruel and brutal penal experiment lead to a coherent civil society? Tom Keneally brings to life the high and the low, the convict and the free of early Australian society.

Awards

Winner 2010 Australia Book Industry Awards General Non-fiction Book of the Year
Shortlisted 2009 WA Premier’s Literary Award for Non-fiction
Shortlisted 2010 QLD Premier’s Literary Awards (History Book)

Other Recommended Titles

The Garret: Thomas Keneally

The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith

The Other Side of the Frontier: Aboriginal Resistance to the European Invasion of Australia

The Colony: A History of Early Sydney

Thomas Keneally

Thomas Keneally was born in 1935 and, as well as writing many novels, has shown an increasing interest in producing histories. His history of Irish convictism was entitled The Great Shame and was published in all the English language markets. The same was true of his later work, The Commonwealth of Thieves, which looked upon the penal origins of Australia in a way which sought to make the reader feel close to the experience of individual Aboriginals, convicts and officials. His novels include Bring Larksand Heroes, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Gossip from the Forest, and Schindler’s Ark. He has the won the Miles Franklin Award, the Booker Prize, the Los Angeles Book Prize, the Royal Society of Literature Prize, the Scripter Award of the University of Southern California, the Mondello International Prize and the Helmerich Prize. He lives in Sydney with his wife, and is Number 1 ticket-holder of the Manly-Warringah Rugby League team.