Australians: Origins to Eureka – Thomas Keneally

Australians: Origins to Eureka by our very own National Living Treasure Thomas Keneally is the first volume of a unique history of Australia which brings to life the vast range of characters who have formed our national story. Released on September 1 this is a book collection that all Australians should own.

Convicts and Aborigines, settlers and soldiers, patriots and reformers, bushrangers and gold seekers, it is from their lives and their stories that Tom Keneally 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.

$48.77 RRP: $59.99 Save 19% $49.99 RRP: $59.99 Save 16% Not Available Spend $50 for FREE delivery Spend $60 for FREE delivery $6.95 flat fee delivery The prices listed above were correct at the time they were added to BookOffers however prices change so make sure you click through to each of the featured merchants to check the current price

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 black American John Joseph bring us the drama of the Eureka uprising.

Were the first European mothers whores or matriarchs? Was the first generation of Australian children the luckiest or unluckiest on the planet? How did this often cruel and brutal penal experiment lead to a coherent civil society? To answer these and many more questions Tom Keneally has brought to life the high and the low, the convict and the free of early Australian society.

This is truly a new history of Australia, by an author of outstanding literary skill and experience, and whose own humanity permiates every page.

Links and Further Reading

• Book a ticket to a talk by Thomas Keneally at the Opera House

Read this book? – Leave a comment or review below.

Related posts:

1. Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species – Sean B Caroll
2. In Action with the SAS – David Horner & Neil Thomas
3. The Great Empires of the Ancient World – Thomas Harrison (Edited by)