Origins | James Boyce in Conversation
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Fullers Bookshop
About
This fascinating book sets aside the clichés of Australian history and asks us to look again.
What really happened when exiled criminals made a home in an occupied and defended country? How were they changed by this new world? What can the first years of settlement tell us about Australia today?
The First Fleet left Britain at the height of the enclosure movement, when traditional rights to communal land were being rapidly extinguished. Many convicts brought those older ideas about land with them, and the first years of the colony saw a distinctive new society develop. Later, it was supplanted by a system favouring free settlers, large land grants and a creed of unstoppable progress. But the first thirty-five years of the colony tell a different story.
In Origins, James Boyce brings this formative period to life. The protagonists include convicts, Aboriginal people, soldiers, governors, and the country itself. The picture that emerges will change how you think about Australia's origins.
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.
James will be in conversation with Vica Bailey. Vica Bayley is the Greens Deputy Leader and Member for Clark. Passionate about Tasmania’s wilderness, Vica helped to extend the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, and was a key part of defending it from the Liberals’ privatisation and development plans. As spokesperson for Residents Opposed to the Cable Car, Vica fought for the protection of Kunanyi / Mt Wellington from the cable car and private commercial development on the summit. He also worked closely with the Aboriginal community to see land return and highlight threats to ancestral heritage values. He stands in solidarity with Palawa claims for land justice, equality and heritage protection.
Join James and Vica at the Afterword Cafe.