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Van Diemen’s Land

Van Diemen’s Land

‘A brilliant book and a must-read for anyone interested in how land shapes people’ —Tim Flannery

Almost half of the convicts who came to Australia came to Van Diemen’s Land. There they found a land of bounty and a penal society, a kangaroo economy and a new way of life.

In this multi-award-winning history of colonial Tasmania, James Boyce shows how the newcomers were changed by the natural world they encountered. Escaping authority, they soon settled away from the towns, dressing in kangaroo skin and living off the land.

Behind the official attempt to create a Little England was another story of adaptation, in which the poor, the exiled and the criminal made a new home in a strange land.

This is their story, the story of Van Diemen’s Land.

About the author

James Boyce

James Boyce is a multi-award-winning historian. His first book, Van Diemen’s Land, was described by Richard Flanagan as ‘the most significant colonial history since The Fatal Shore’. He is also the editor of Inga Clendinnen and the author of Losing Streak, Born Bad, Imperial Mud and 1835, which was The Age’s 2012 Book of the Year.

More about James Boyce



Specifications

Release date: 1 Oct 2018

RRP: $55.00

Hardback ISBN: 9781760640781

Format: Hardback

Size: 234 x 153mm

Extent: 408pp

Praise for Van Diemen’s Land

‘The first ecologically based social history of colonial Australia, showing how wallabies led to liberty, and the bush became a true home for desperate men. A brilliant book and a must-read for anyone interested in how land shapes people.’ —Tim Flannery

Van Diemen’s Land is a fresh and sparkling account of the first generation of British settlement in Tasmania that also makes an important contribution to Australian colonial historiography.’ —Henry Reynolds

 

‘The publication of Van Diemen’s Land signals an entirely fresh approach to Australian history-writing … this is a brilliant publication.’ —Alan Atkinson

‘Like the best history, Van Diemen’s Land is not an artfully constructed narrative with the (inevitably inadequate) evidence banished to endnotes, but a dialogue between historian and reader as they explore the fragile sources, and the silences, together.’ —Inga Clendinnen

‘This remarkable, astute and accessibly scholarly work is to be savoured like a salty breeze off the Derwent.’ —Christopher Bantick, Sunday Tasmanian

 

‘Boyce’s Van Diemen’s Land is a triumph.’ —The Sydney Morning Herald

‘… passionate and comprehensive … ’ —Australian Book Review

‘ … a remarkable work …’ —The Canberra Times