Eureka: The Unfinished Revolution

In 1854, Victorian miners fought a deadly battle under the flag of the Southern Cross at the Eureka Stockade. Though brief and doomed to fail, the battle is legend in both our history and in the Australian mind. Henry Lawson wrote poems about it, its symbolic flag is still raised, and even the nineteenth-century visitor Mark Twain called it “a strike for liberty”. Was this rebellion a fledgling nation’s first attempt to assert its independence under colonial rule? Or was it merely rabblerousing by unruly miners determined not to pay their taxes? In his inimitable style, Peter FitzSimons gets into the hearts and minds of those on the battlefield, and those behind the scenes, bringing to life Australian legends on both sides of the rebellion.

Peter FitzSimons is one of the Sydney Morning Herald s and Sun Herald s -most popular columnists, broadcasts daily on Radio 2UE and is a regular contributor to the International Herald Tribune and the London Daily Telegraph. He is the author of seventeen books, including biographies of Nancy Wake, Nene King, John Eales and Steve Waugh. His latest book is Tobruk. He lives with his family in Sydney.