Australian Colonists: Exploration of Social History 1788-1870

A social history of the period from 1788 to 1870 from the beginning of British settlement of Australia to the year when the last British soldiers sailed home from the colonies.
In his inimitable fashion Inglis tells the story of convicts, currency lads and emigrants settling into their new land. The newcomers brought with them from the old world their traditional holidays and made their own fetes in the new. We see them facing natural enemies in the land, and having their tranquillity shattered by bushrangers as well as rebellious convicts, military officers and gold diggers. With them we hear the sounds of distant war. We meet the men they honoured, and we read of efforts by poets and orators to turn the Australian experience into history.

Ken Inglis is Visiting Fellow, Australian Dictionary of Biography at the ANU and was formerly Vice-Chancellor and Professor of History at the University of Papua New Guinea. He has had a long and distinguished teaching and recearch career at Brown, Harvard, Cork, Hawaii, Cambridge and Rutgers Universities and is the author of nine books. He is chairman of the editorial board of the Australian Dictionary of Biography and a regular contributor to academic and general journals, newspapers and ABC radio.