The following book, as the title suggests, revolves around early Australian history. It starts from the First Fleet era, which referred to the fleet of 11 ships that brought the first European and African settlers to Australia. It was made up of two Royal Navy vessels, three store ships and six convict transports. On 13 May 1787 the fleet under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, with over 1400 people (convicts, marines, sailors, civil officers and free settlers), left from Portsmouth, England and took a journey of over 24,000 kilometers (15,000 mi) and over 250 days to eventually arrive in Botany Bay, New South Wales, where a penal colony would become the first European settlement in Australia.

Winner of the 2009 Tasmania Book Prize Winner of the 2008 Colin Roderick Award 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 book, James Boyce shows how the convicts 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. Shortlisted in the 2009 Prime Minister's Literary Awards, the 2009 NSW Premier's Literary Awards, the 2010 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, the 2008 Age Book of the Year Awards, the 2008 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, the 2008 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, the 2008 NSW Premier's History Awards and the 2008 Australian Book Industry Awards ‘A brilliant book and a must-read for anyone interested in how land shapes people.’ —Tim Flannery ‘The most significant colonial history since The Fatal Shore. In re-imagining Australia's past, it invents a new future.’ —Richard Flanagan ‘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 ‘The publication of Van Diemen's Land signals an entirely fresh approach to Australian history-writing ... This is a brilliant publication.’ —Alan Atkinson ‘A fresh and sparkling account.’ —Henry Reynolds James Boyce is the multiple award-winning author of Born Bad, 1835 and Van Diemen’s Land. He has a PhD from the University of Tasmania, where he is an honorary research associate of the School of Geography and Environmental Studies.

Excerpt from Convict Life in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land: The Story of the Ten Governors, and the Story of the Convicts Pessimists; time and again, have raised a lachrymose wail about the stain which must always rest on the colony through the criminality of its early life; but these men can never see anything but the evil, and even that evil they would intensify for the sake of making their wailing more mournful. 'tis true that the beginning was in some measure bad, but that bad beginning was better than no beginning at all and, fresh from long and deep research among old records, I am bold to declare that the earlier convicts were not the worst criminals who came out to the colony, and that some of the darker and bloodier stains which deface the first pages of the colony's history were made by men who counted the poor chained wretches under them as worse than the offal in a charnel-house - men who came out free, who lived freely, lied and robbed and murdered freely, and who literally fattened on the blood of other mortals a thousand times better than themselves, although those mortals had' been banished from their fatherland in chains. The facts in proof of this assertion will appear in proper order; at present we must deal with events that transpired before either bond or free from Britain's shores placed foot upon Australian land for the purpose of making it their heme. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Traces history of early convict settlements in New South Wales, Norfolk Island and Van Diemen's Land from 1788 to mid-1830s.

Australia's economic history is the story of the transformation of an indigenous economy and a small convict settlement into a nation of nearly 23 million people with advanced economic, social and political structures. It is a history of vast lands with rich, exploitable resources, of adversity in war, and of prosperity and nation building. It is also a history of human behaviour and the institutions created to harness and govern human endeavour. This account provides a systematic and comprehensive treatment of the nation's economic foundations, growth, resilience and future, in an engaging, contemporary narrative. It examines key themes such as the centrality of land and its usage, the role of migrant human capital, the tension between development and the environment, and Australia's interaction with the international economy. Written by a team of eminent economic historians, The Cambridge Economic History of Australia is the definitive study of Australia's economic past and present.