A Commonwealth of Thieves: The Improbable Birth of Australia

The limited scope of Kennealy's story, focusing on the first few years of the Australian experiment, allows for a really nice degree of detail in his telling about those years. The narrative style he uses makes this a very enjoyable history as well as a thorough one. Not knowing much about aboriginal life and culture before the colonial period, I appreciated the information the author unobtrusively presented about the belief systems and values of the native people and how they shaped early interactions with the Europeans. At the same time, Kennealy's detailed research makes clear that the mindset of the British at the time was nearly as foreign to our modern ways of thinking as any native culture could be, at least as relates to crime and punishment. Burned at the stake for forgery? Death sentences for prostitution or for stealing a few items of clothing? Hard to believe those were the 'civilized' values of the day. The years of hardship faced by both the transported convicts and their government-appointed keepers are brought to life in this gripping history. I highly recommend it.

This account of the founding of the first English penal colony in Australia is also a view into other things, not least the state of English society in the late eighteenth century, one of the consequences of the Enclosure Act, and human triumph over fantastic adversity. It is very difficult for us to even imagine the hardships these people endured, from what seemed an arbitrary legal system, the overcrowded jails and prison hulks, the voyage to the end of the world, and finally survival in a very alien land. It must have been no less difficult for the Aborigines, but their story is only peripheral to the focus of the book. There is a very good follow-up on what became of some of the first arrivals, those who not only survived but also succeeded beyond whatever they could have dreamed of in the Mother Country, becoming in time and in spite of their origins the pioneers and founders of a modern, vibrant country.

"A Commonwealth of Thieves - The Improbable Birth of Australia" covers the establishment of the first English settlement in New South Wales (i.e. Australia), and the stories of the convicts, free men, and military personnel who played a role. He also has some stories of the unfortunate aboriginal population who were the first to encounter the European settlers. The book is divided into two sections. The first section covers the decision to send the convicts, the preparation for the first fleet, the voyage of the first fleet, the evaluation of where to build the colony, and the establishment of the colony by the members of the first fleet. The second section covers additional shipments of convicts to the area, the continued growth of the colony and the interactions with the native population, and concludes with the departure of the colony's first governor, Arthur Phillip. This is one of the balanced historical accounts on any period of history that I have ever read. Thomas Keneally does an exceptional job of relating the stories of the people and events without choosing sides. There is, of course, ample opportunity to criticize the Europeans, or to defend their actions, but Keneally stays away from that discussion, and simply relates what happened. He does offer the historical perspective of the time on the events as gathered from numerous resources. For the rest, he leaves the reader to make their own conclusions. The research that Thomas Keneally did for this book is also superb. He draws from official historical records, as well as numerous personal journals from a fairly large number of the people involved. From these sources he builds a history which not only covers the settlement, but then blends that with biographical sketches. He provides an excellent bibliography as well. This is an excellent book which covers the subject incredibly well. The writing is clear and concise. The only minor negative would be that the narrative can be a little dry at times. This is not a big problem though, and the book is definitely worth reading if you are interested in the early history of Australia.

Very few countries can trace their origins back to transported convicts, and even fewer would boast about it! Australia is a different sort of place, and this extremely well-written book gives us the first few years of the convict transport system, and how the country was initially settled by English and Irish convicts. This book compares favorably with "The Fatal Shore", which I read several years ago. The style is brisk, as could be expected from an author who is famed as a novelist, and the history just moves along. Unfortunately, there isn't much input from the native point of view, but that's not a shock given the European views of them as almost sub-human. This is a wonderful portrait of a country that points with pride to its beginning, and is quite an enjoyable read for everyone.

The founding of European Australia has suffered [and survived] a wide variety of accounts. Why should another be necessary? Chiefly, because few of those histories approach the level of human interest given that event in this book. The most famous of the other narratives, Hughes' "The Fatal Shore", flogged the inhumanity of the British prison system almost as sternly as colonial commanders did the felons. Keneally's story is far more balanced, since he understands better the situation of the times. He makes no excuses for the British prison system at a time when its major colonial effort was breaking away. For him, it is the human stories he wishes to relate, and with his writing background to help, he succeeds admirably. Keneally has touched on the early years of the Port Jackson [Sydney] convict colony before, most notably in his novel "The Playmaker". Here, shedding fiction for fact, he describes the voyage of the First Fleet, the landing at Botany Bay and the discovery that Cook's description was inadequate and the relocation further along the coast to the "best harbour in the world". In doing so, he brings to life a man not often enough recognized, Arthur Phillip, commander of the Fleet and first Governor of the colony. Phillip's initial success, bringing the crews and convicts nearly intact across vast stretches of ocean, stands in stark contrast to later transports. The Second Fleet proved a scandal of bad planning, mismanagement and inefficiency. Far worse for the potential of the colony's success was the inadequate supply mechanisms. Instead of immediately returning to a supply port, the prison ships went to Asia for tea to return to England. The prisoners and their keepers were left to shift for themselves. Only Phillip's firm, even-handed management of resources kept Port Jackson's population alive - even if at mere survival levels. Unlike the British "Pilgrims" in Massachussetts almost three centuries before, the indigenous peoples around Port Jackson did not step forward to aid the invaders. Keneally describes the various groups of the area, who had been there for millennia, as suspicious and hostile to the Europeans. The invasion had upset a finely balanced network of land occupation and resource allocation. When the Europeans fished or hunted in Aborigine lands, they upset that balance, reducing the Aborigine's resource base. Coupled with the incursion into supplies, the Europeans brought that dreaded scourge, smallpox, into the Australian East Coast. The Aborigines had no idea what smallpox was, nor comprehended why it had been imposed on them, but they knew well its source. Their fear and resentment was well-founded and expressed. Phillip, whose mandate was to establish "friendly and amicable relations" was challenged by forces he, too, had poor knowledge of. However, he persevered, even surviving a spearing without launching a war of retribution. Keneally's balanced approach, in which he shows Aborigin