The Story of Australia's People Vol. I: The Rise and Fall of Ancient

Geoffrey Blainey, Penguin Random House Australia. Compelling, groundbreaking and brilliantly readable, The Story of Australia's People- The Rise and Fall of Ancient Australia is the first instalment of an ambitious two-part work, and the culmination of the lifework of Australia's most prolific and wide-ranging historian. The vast continent of Australia was settled in two main streams, far apart in time and origin. The first came ashore some 50,000 years ago when the islands of Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea were one. The second began to arrive from Europe at the end of the eighteenth century. Each had to come to terms with the land they found, and each had to make sense of the other. The long Aboriginal occupation of Australia witnessed spectacular changes. The rising of the seas isolated the continent and preserved a nomadic way of life, while agriculture was revolutionising other parts of the world. Over millennia, the Aboriginal people mastered the land's climates, seasons and resources. Traditional Aboriginal life came under threat the moment Europeans crossed the world to plant a new society in an unknown land. That land in turn rewarded, tricked, tantalised and often defeated the new arrivals. The meeting of the two cultures is one of the most difficult and complex meetings in recorded history. In this book Professor Geoffrey Blainey returns first to the subject of his celebrated works on Australian history, Triumph of the Nomads (1975) and A Land Half Won (1980), retelling the story of our history up until 1850 in light of the latest research. He has changed his view about vital aspects of the Indigenous and early British history of this land, and looked at other aspects for the first time. Compelling, groundbreaking and brilliantly readable, The Story of Australia's People- The Rise and Fall of Ancient Australia is the first instalment of an ambitious two-part work, and the culmination of the lifework of Australia's most prolific and wide-ranging historian. 'Absorbing and important . the first volume of an ambitious work on the peopling of this continent from its human origins to our own day.bold, rich, wise, authioritative and questioning.' Peter Stanley, The Age 'The Story of Australia's People- The Rise and Fall of Ancient Australia situates pre-invasion Aboriginal society as a triumphant culture with much to celebrate.' John Maynard, The Age 'Blainey has produced a book that all Australians could and, dare I say it, should read . . . I very much look forward to the next instalment of his bold, rich, wise, wry, authoritative and questioning trilogy.' Canberra Times 'This is the real story of Australia, at last.' Courier Mail 'Blainey delivers a brilliant narrative on Australia's settlement.' Australian GeographicProfessor Geoffrey Blainey is one of Australia's most prolific and popular historians. He has written more than forty books, including The Tyranny of Distance, Triumph of the Nomads, A Shorter History of Australia, The Rush That Never Ended, and the international bestseller A Short History of the World, which was published in a score of lands as far apart as Brazil, India, Spain and China. He has served the federal government as chairman of the Commonwealth Literary Fund, the Australia Council for the Arts, the National Council for the Centenary of Federation, and the Australia-China Council. At the United Nations in New York, in 1988, Professor Blainey received the celebrated Britannica Prize 'for excellence in the dissemination of knowledge for the benefit of mankind'. A recipient of Australia's highest honour, Companion in the Order of Australia (AC), he has been officially listed for two decades by the National Trust as a 'National Living Treasure'. He is married to the well-known biographer Ann Blainey.…