The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia's Founding,   ISBN:9780394753669

Customer Rating: 

This book is about the causes and consequences of the transportation of British convicts to Australia. This is part of the history of Australia: the beginning of a British colony founded by deported criminals thousands of miles and many months from Britain. Transportation began in 1787 (the First Fleet landed in January 1788) and ended in 1868. During this period some 160,000 convicts were exiled to this prison-colony.

Not an auspicious start for the nation now known as Australia, and most certainly not an auspicious occurrence for Australia's indigenous peoples. Mr Hughes looks at what drove the British decision to deport convicts and the choice of Australia as the destination. He recounts the difficult days of early settlement, the problems of maintaining a prison so far from Britain, and the politics involved.

Many Australians, me included, have limited knowledge of this aspect of our country's history. For many of us, Australian history was only sketchily taught at school and tended to focus on events after the publicised discovery of gold in 1851 or from Australia's formal nationhood as the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. I grew up in Tasmania, where the convict past was both too big to ignore and too painful to consider. Convict ancestry was not acknowledged then, although this may be changing. Australia's population is now over 22 million people according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The transportation era no longer defines our nation, but it is a very important shaping influence.

This book has sat on my bookcase for 20 years. I have previously read chapters but only recently have read the entire book from beginning to end. Now, of course, I wonder why I didn't read it sooner. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone interested in Australian history and 18th century social history and politics. One suggestion: be patient as you read. The structure of this book has its own logic, and it is not always chronological. The notes and the bibliography provided by Mr Hughes provide a wealth of information for those interested in delving further into Australia's history.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Customer Rating: 

THE BOOK IS IN VERY GOOD CONDITION AND IT ARRIVED ON TIME.
I AM VERY HAPPY WITH THE SELLER.
IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN AUSTRALIA, IT WILL INFORM YOU ABOUT
ITS ORIGINS AND HISTORY. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Customer Rating: 

While there is all sorts of interesting information about the founding of Australia, it is overly dry and technical -- more of a textbook than I had hoped. There is no story to the book, just every possible detail about every possible facet of life in early Australia.
This book would be much better suited as a reference, not a book to read from front to back.

Customer Rating: 

I received this book as a gift years ago and never got around to reading it. Now that I finally started it, I can only say I really missed a terrific book. Australia always interested me, but the things I am finding out in this book almost makes my jaw drop open! It's absolutely amazing - the facts about how it started a penal colony, the how the natives lived and the plant and animal life. It is just so interesting I can't put it down, but I'm trying to read it slowly so it can all sink in, and I also don't want it to end. Some of the hardships the explorers and prisoners experienced on the ship were so intriguing, that I read parts of it to my [...] students and they beg for more, since we just covered an explorer unit. They can't believe all the problems people faced, and it make them appreciate the lives they have today. One great read!

Customer Rating: 

"The Fatal Shore" by Robert Hughes is the one book which is always mentioned when it comes to books about the history of Australia, and for good reason. Hughes' brilliant work covers in great detail the transportation of criminals from England to Australia, and the history of those penal colonies. He also deals with the historical figures and events which impacted those colonies.

Prior to this work, Robert Hughes had authored books on art, and is generally known as an art critic and a documentary maker. This work of history seems to be an unusual diversion from his typical interests, but as he explains in his introduction, it was while doing a series of documentaries on Australian art which took him to Port Arthur that he realized that he knew little of his country's convict past. His documentary work undoubtedly played a key role in his making this one of the more readable histories there is, and led to "The Fatal Shore" becoming an international best-seller.

He starts by discussing the conditions in England which led to the transportation of criminals to the opposite side of the world, the theories about there being a "criminal class", and the loss of the Americas as a dumping ground for British criminals. Another key point is the sentencing which was used at the time which resulted in people with a wide variety of criminal convictions, from petty theft to murder all being selected, without regard to whether or not they would be able to provide any valuable service to the colonies which were to be created.

Next Hughes discusses the first fleet, from the difficult passage, both for prisoners and free people, to the arrival and the dealings with the Aborigines to the difficult first years of the colony; it is an engaging tale which reads like a novel. The more recent "A Commonwealth of Thieves" by Thomas Keneally does a more complete job of telling the story of this period for those who are interested in learning more, but Hughes' work covers more time and is far more complete when looking at the entire period of transportation to Australia.

Hughes then looks at the makeup of the convicts, both men and women and the ratio between the sexes. Who they were, what crimes had they committed, and how they behaved once they were there. The vast majority were sent due to crimes against property, and just a small percentage for crimes against people. There were a few which appear to have been convicted of political crimes as well. The female prisoners were mostly of a marriageable age, and many were encouraged to marry the non-convict men who were there.

Hughes also covers in detail the more severe areas of punishment which were established in places like Norfolk Island and Macquarie Harbor. Though very few prisoners ever were sent to these secondary facilities, their presence and the stories about them helped to keep the prisoners in line. The treatment of the prisoners at these facilities was horrendous, and many preferred death to staying there. Many committed crimes while in the facilities in order to be sent back to Hobart for trial.

The end of the book covers the decline of the transportation system. Prison reform was coming and there were new ideas about how to deal with crime and criminals. The cost of transportation was high, and once space was no longer an issue in England's prisons it was no longer cost effective to transport. In addition, the non-criminal populations of the colonies grew, and they were not as welcoming of additional convicts as they had been earlier. In addition, once gold had been found, the wealth of the colonies made them even less accepting.

"The Fatal Shore" still sets the standard when it comes to Australian history. Hughes covers not only the major sites of Sydney and Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), but also the efforts to create penal systems in Queensland and in Western Australia. In addition to the events covered, there are wonderful biographical descriptions of the major officials and notorious convicts. The one piece that the reader is likely to ask for more is with regards to the Aborigines, as so little is known of the individuals who were involved. The discussion of the native Australians is often told in very general terms, as there simply isn't any detailed written record to draw from.