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The first ten years or so of British colonization of New South Wales are fixed in the academic and popular mind as a web of powerful images. The elements of the founding mythology are easily listed: grossly overcrowded and unhealthy English prison hulks; the colony proposed as a cheap solution to the convict problem; hasty decisions based on overly optimistic assessment of the land's fertility; a poorly equipped and managed First Fleet; subsequent neglect by Britain; long years of deprivation and bare surivial; callous treatment of Aborgines and the unleashing of smallpox among them; and terra nullius as an opportunistic and aberrant notion.
This book digs deeper and sheds new light on the decision to start a colony in Australia. He examines the impact of the American War of Independence and Britain's shifting strategic aims, the role of ministerial incompetence and ambition, and the concerns of a turbulent society obsessed with law and order. In doing so, he questions several accepted ideas about how and why Britain set its sights on an Australian colony.
Now in one definitive volume, Botany Bay and the First Fleet is a full, authentic account of the beginnings of modern Australia. In 1787 a convoy of eleven ships, carrying about 1400 people, set out from England for Botany Bay, on the east coast of New South Wales. In deciding on Botany Bay, British authorities hoped not only to rid Britain of its excess criminals, but also to gain a key strategic outpost and take control of valuable natural resources. According to the conventional account, it was a shambolic affair: under-prepared, poorly equipped and ill-disciplined. Here, Alan Frost debunks these myths, and shows that the voyage was in fact meticulously planned – reflecting its importance to Britain’s imperial and commercial ambitions. In his examination of the ships, passengers and preparation, Frost reveals the hopes and schemes of those who engineered the voyage, and the experiences of those who made it. The culmination of thirty-five years’ study of previously neglected archives, Botany Bay and the First Fleet offers new and surprising insights into how Australia came to be.
Despite several landmarks across the state bearing his name, John Hunter, the second governor of New South Wales, remains somewhat of an enigma. His solitary, career-driven life on land and at sea was tumultuous. As a governor, he had a tough time making his mark and taking charge, and eventually failed. Upon his return to England he went to great lengths to redeem his standing in society.
This is the story of an extraordinary period in British criminal history, brought to life through unique surviving records held by the UK National Archives. For over two hundred years, tens of thousands of convicts were sentenced to be 'banished beyond the seas', mostly to Australia and to destinations which became the stuff of legend - Botany Bay, Van Diemen's Land, Norfolk Island. This book follows their epic voyages across the world's oceans, recapturing the perils and unexpected pleasures of life at sea in fresh and fascinating detail.
It is the duty of historians to be, wherever they can, accurate, precise, humane, imaginative - using moral imagination above all - and even-handed. The first of three volumes of the landmark, award-winning series The Europeans in Australia gives an account of early settlement by Britain. It tells of the political and intellectual origins of this extraordinary undertaking that began during the 1780s, a decade of extraordinary creativity and the climax of the European Enlightenment. Volume One, The Beginning, examines the forces that led to the penal colony at Port Jackson and the first twenty-five years of white settlement. Atkinson examines, as few historians have done before, the political and intellectual origins of this extraordinary undertaking. It began during the 1780s, a decade of extraordinary creativity and the climax of the European Enlightenment. The purpose of settlement might seem uninspiring, but the fact that this was to be a community of convicts and ex-convicts raised profound questions about the common rights of the subject, the responsibility of power, and the possibility of imaginative attachment to a land of exile. Atkinson explores the imagery and technique of European power as it made its first impact on Australia. He argues that the Europeans were not simply conquerors motivated by brutal or short-term colonising imperatives. The Europeans' culture was ancient and infinitely complex, thickly woven with ideas about spirituality, authority, self, and land, all of which influenced the development of Australia. The possession of land and conflict with Aboriginal peoples were at issue, but so were the ancient habits of Europeans themselves. The culmination of an extraordinary career in the writing and teaching of Australian history, The Europeans in Australia grapples with the Australian historical experience as a whole from the point of view of the settlers from Europe. Ambitious and unique, it is the first such large, single-author account since Manning Clark's A History of Australia.
Australia is the last continent to be settled by Europeans, but it also sustains a people and a culture tens of thousands years old. For much of the past 225 years the newcomers have sought to replace the old with the new. This book tells how they imposed themselves on the land and describes how they brought technology, institutions and ideas to make it their own. The fourth edition incorporates the far-reaching effects of an export and investment boom in the early years of the twenty-first century that lifted Australia to unprecedented prosperity. The sale of minerals and energy enabled the economy to withstand the global financial crisis of 2007–08 but there was no agreement on how the wealth was to be managed and its benefits distributed. The book describes a continuing search for solutions to climate change, the unauthorised arrival of refugees, Indigenous disadvantage and generational change.
While Captain James Cook's South Pacific voyages have been extensively studied, much less attention has been paid to his representation of the Pacific Northwest. In Constructing Colonial Discourse, N.E. Currie focuses on the month Cook spent at Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island in 1778 during his third Pacific voyage. Comparing the official 1784 edition of that voyage with his Cook's journal account (made available in the scholarly edition prepared by New Zealand scholar J.C. Beaglehole), Currie demonstrates that the representation of North America's northwest coast in the late eighteenth century was shaped as much by the publication process as by British notions of landscape, natural history, cannibalism, and history in the new world.Most recent scholarship critiques imperialist representations of the non-European world, while taking these published accounts at face value. Constructing Colonial Discourse combines close textual analysis with the insights of postcolonial theory to critique the discursive and rhetorical strategies by which the official account of the third voyage transformed Cook into an imperial hero.
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The Hawkesbury River is the longest coastal river in New South Wales. A vital source of water and food, it has a long Aboriginal history and was critical for the survival of the early British colony at Sydney. The Hawkesbury’s weathered shores, cliffs and fertile plains have inspired generations of artists. It is surrounded by an unparalleled mosaic of national parks, including the second-oldest national park in Australia, Ku-ring-gai National Park. Although it lies only 35 km north of Sydney, to many today the Hawkesbury is a ‘hidden river’ – its historical and natural significance not understood or appreciated. Until now, the Hawkesbury has lacked an up-to-date and comprehensive book describing how and when the river formed, how it functions ecologically, how it has influenced humans and their patterns of settlement and, in turn, how it has been affected by those settlements and their people. The Hawkesbury River: A Social and Natural History fills this gap. With chapters on the geography, geology, hydrology and ecology of the river through to discussion of its use by Aboriginal and European people and its role in transport, defence and culture, this highly readable and richly illustrated book paints a picture of a landscape worthy of protection and conservation. It will be of value to those who live, visit or work in the region, those interested in Australian environmental history, and professionals in biology, natural resource management and education.