A Short History of Australia

JANUARY 26, 1788…

A shipload of English convicts headed by Captain-General Arthur Phillip sailed into Sydney Cove, disembarked, and unfurled the British flag over the mainland of Australia.

Professor Manning Clark of the Australian National University has written a lively, extremely readable narrative history of a land whose first white settlers were the criminal castaways of civilisation. Australia’s social, cultural, and political growth is traced through its many stages: the birth of the original colony; the influence of the churchmen; the social reforms of Governor Macquarie; the territorial expansion caused by the Gold Rush of 1851; the conflict between the squatters, town bourgeoisie, and the workers-up through the effect of two world wars and the modern emergence of the prosperous Commonwealth of Australia.