The story of modern Australia begins in eighteenth-century Britain, where people
were hanged for petty offences but crime was rife, and the gaols were bursting.
From this situation was born the Sydney experiment, with criminals perceived to
be damaging British society transported to Sydney, an 'open air prison with wal
ls 14,000 miles thick'. Eleven ships were dispatched in 1781, and arrived in Aus
tralia after eight hellish months at sea.
Tom Keneally describes the first fo
ur years of the 'thief colony' and how, despite the escapes, the floggings, the
murders and the rebellions, it survived against the odds to create a culture whi
ch would never have been tolerated in its homeland but which, in Australia, beca
me part of the identity of a new and audacious nation. By the author of Schindle
r's Ark, since made into the internationally acclaimed film, Schindler's List.
