The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia's Founding by Robert HughesMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I read this very prematurely, never even having set foot in Australia and knowing next to nothing about its history. Still, despite the overflow of people and place names, this was extremely eye opening. The treatment of the prisoners, in particular, is probably some of the most sadist material I have ever read. It is absolutely crazy that people in charge could do such things and still consider themselves civilized.
And many of the characters were unforgettable, especially Alexander Maconochie and his Merit point system. I wonder if any other place has ever tried a similar system, since it seemed to produce some excellent results.
And I expected to read more about The Kelly gang, but they were mentioned only in passing, so I can only imagine the target market was people who are much more familiar with Australian history than I am.
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