The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia's Founding by Robert Hughes Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia's Founding
Book Review: Don't waste your time...
Summary: 1 Stars
I hate to disagree with most of the other reviews..well, no I don't...but out of the hundreds of history books I have read this has to be one of the worst. I found myself skimming whole chapters. It is poorly organized and boring. A masterpiece? Bravo? Books like this are the reason most people hate history.Book Review: Better than fiction!
Summary: 5 Stars
This book was a great read. Hughes did an excellent job of creating the picture of Australian history. One of the best books I have read. The stories stay with you. I read this book just before a trip to Melbourne and Sydney and the places were just as he described them. Now I know why there are so many red-headed men name Sean.Book Review: The terror and personal drama that founded Australia
Summary: 5 Stars
Excellent book, which captures the spirit of English 17th & 18th society to tell the story of the founding of Australia.Although the book is over 1000 pages thick it never becomes dull due to the many aspects that are discussed.
It covers broad aspects of the System (as deportation is called) from the living in a wilderness to the creating of a society and how the System shaped Australia's future. It also covers the small tales of individuals who played their parts in the new colony. The horror of the System, the hardship and the rewards, those who grabbed the opportunities provided and those who only fell deeper. Personal drama and a nations history! If you ever want to know anything about Australia and it's history then this is the book you have to read.
Book Review: A must read
Summary: 5 Stars
Enormously satisfying book that for me, filled in the gaps in my knowledge of Australian history, and was also a very enjoyable read. Hughes is not afraid to state that Australians have been ashamed of, and tried to hide the "convict stain". He even takes on the myth of sacred Gallipoli (1915) as our country's birth. As such this is a pivotal work for Australia, a book that can open people's eyes and minds.
Hughes vividly portrays the terrible origins of the country, as a sewer for the poor in England's undeclared civil war against the lower classes. For me the appalling conditions of the penal colony and the miseries suffered there gave a good context for the even worse atrocities inflicted upon the aborigines. Guilt felt for these atrocities is rarely directed back at the government in England which orchestrated the colonies.
The amazing pluck and will to survive of many individual convict stories is quite amazing. I was surprised at the extent of Irish involvement.
Book Review: A Historical Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
As luck would have it, I recently had the opportunity to make a brief business trip to Australia. I knew very little about Australia and thought the best way to get some brief but non-superficial background would be to learn something of its history. I opted to read Robert Hughes's book which tells the story of Australia's founding and of its convict past. The book is lengthy, even too lengthy to complete on the 14 hour flights from the West Coast of the United States to Sydney and back. But the story was fascinating, and the book was well worth the attention and effort.Hughes tells the story of the discovery of Australia, the decision of Great Britain to "transport" its convicted to the continent, the various kinds of lives the convicts found there, the aboriginal settlers and their treatment by the newcomers, and the ultimate creation of a new society. There are harrowing accounts of the passage from Britain to Australia in the convict ships, and still shocking accounts of the secondary places of punishment created in Australia for repeat offenders -- places such as Norfolk Island, Port Aurthur, and Macquarrie Bay. Hughes describes these nineteenth century camps as precursors of the Gulag in our own time, and I am afraid he is correct. They reminded me to of Andersonville Prison in our own Civil War but on a much broader, more wicked scale. The description of the prisons and barbaric punishments were to me the most vivid portions of the book.
Besides the horror stories, there is a great deal of nuanced, thoughtful writing in the book about the settlement and building of Australia and of the dangers of facile over-generalization about how the convicts fared, or about virtually any other historical subject. Some were able to serve out their sentences and rise to prosperity and a new life. Others were shamefully abused. The history of the aboriginal peoples too is described and it is an unhappy subject, alas.
Hughes begins with the early days of the transport and concludes when the system was finally abolished in the 1850's as a result of protests and of the Australian gold rush.
After reading this book, I thought I had realized my goal of learning something of Australia. More importantly, I felt part of the land even though I hadn't seen it before and will likely never see it again. Places that I read about and that were only names took on character and importance.
I have read a substantial amount of United States history but hadn't read about Australia before. This book is well-documented, eloquently written and has a feel for the pulse of its subject. It is an outstanding work of history and is sure to broaden the human perspective of the reader.