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 enlarge | Author: Robert Hughes
Publisher: Vintage Books
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
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Rating:  56 reviews
Sales Rank: 13427
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 752
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.1 x 1.6
ISBN: 0394753666
Dewey Decimal Number: 994
EAN: 9780394753669
ASIN: 0394753666
Publication Date: February 12, 1988
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| Customer Reviews:
 Very strong research but with a dense and morbid writing cadance July 14, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Robert Hughes' The Fatal Shore is an assiduously and tirelessly researched work on the Western "founding" of Australia through essentially an experiment with a penal colony. Hughes obviously has written, to date, the finest and most exhaustive piece on the wonderfully interesting, albeit terrifying, beginnings of the country Down Under. All of this said, while the research is almost beyond the scope of critical analysis, the writing surely is not.
This book, not unlike Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago is dense, and not simply in an academic sense. Hughes drones on and on with anecdotal writings of many of the criminal on "transportation", their keepers and eventually, the settlers. While much of this is interesting the author greatly fails the reader with redundancy - his take seems to be where two would be good, ten would be better. As such, the book drags. It seems almost sacrilege to say anything derogatory about this work (or Solzhenitsyn's as well) as the topics are covered incredibly well. But it seems the reader is not considered, only the research.
The writing aside, readers will come away with a unique and strong base of information on the founding of Australia and the timing of it. Hughes also does a terrific job of showing how the American Revolution influenced London decision makers to embark on such a large task and traces the increase in crime in the late 18th century and early 19th century throughout England, but in London specifically. This is a book that, while good, is quite dense. It is a task to read and is not up to all the accolades critics seem to shower upon it.
 What's This Book Got To Do With America ? March 13, 2007
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
To the reviewer below.....this book is about the founding of Australia. It has nothing to with America. You should focus on reviewing the book rather than using this as a platform to express your political views. Anyway, this book shed much light on Australia's origins. This is history not too well-known. I didn't realize there was this much detailed fact in the convict beginnings of Australia. It's a fascinating read and colorful characters come to life on the page. A highly recommended book.
Australia's Convict Legacy March 6, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Even though this book was written over 20 years ago, it doesn't yet feel dated. It has that timeless quality, the sure sign of a classic. Former art critic of Time magazine and author of many excellent books, Robert Hughes is probably one of the finest prose stylists writing in English today. This history of Australia is unique in that Hughes digs deeply into the past by examining the testimony of the convicts that were "transported" to this land that was in still largely unknown.
In the 20 years prior to the first transportation of convicts from Britain to Botany Bay (1788), the population of London had doubled. This rapid urbanization created poverty and overcrowding, and it spawned an entire "criminal class." There were so many violations of capital statutes that the authorities were reluctant to hang all the criminals for fear of riots. They then decided to house criminals in old ships moored in the docks, but this too proved to be only a temporary measure.
It was at this juncture that transportation was seen as the answer. The British believed, as Hughes tells it, that they would purify the race by ridding themselves of this criminal class. Genetic determinism was a fashionable belief at this time. Ultimately, it was discredited, writes Hughes, "as causes of crime lie within society not the criminal." Transporting convicts had the additional benefit of providing the colonies with free labor. They were considered better workers than the aborigines, who were also subjected to very harsh conditions by the colonists.
Most of the convicts were guilty of crimes against property, a serious offense in those days; very few were "political" prisoners. About 15% were women, all designated prostitutes. The authorities tried to send over only younger women so that they would become wives of the soldiers guarding the convicts. Many of them ultimately married soldiers in order to secure their freedom.
Hughes has written some very moving accounts of the brutishness and inhumanity of this "System." For those convicts who committed a crime while in detention, further punishment was meted out by sending them to Norfolk Island. This was a secondary detention center about 1,000 miles off the coast. It was known as "the Botany Bay of Botany Bay." The only way to escape this hellhole was death, which many of them ultimately welcomed.
What finally ended the transportation system was that by mid-19th century Australia was becoming a thriving and wealthy colony. The newly established and respectable class no longer wanted convicts shipped to New South Wales. Many people were now paying to go to Australia. The local authorities began to question why convicts should be sent there for free. In 1868 the last boatload of convicts disembarked somewhere in Western Australia, marking the end of this ignoble practice.
Hughes has set the record straight for those who always felt that there were similarities between the settling of America and that of Australia. The latter started out not as a land of opportunity and freedom, but one of confinement and punishment.
Fatal Shore March 18, 2006
3 out of 16 found this review helpful
It was very detailed about the early history of Australia's settlement colonies including in Norfolk Island, Van Dieman's Land(Tasmania) and New South Wales. It described famous stories of cannabalism, the relationship to the aborigines, the brutality of the penal settlements and the conditions in Ireland and Great Britain that caused the convicts to be shipped half way around the globe.
The book also dealt with various problems such as the famine crisis that followed the 2nd fleet coming to shore. It described the Assignment system pertaining to the convicts. It described how and why the settlements initially started in Tasmania and eastern Australia and then later Western Australia. It described how various governers made gradual reforms to improve treatment of convicts and how the convicts system fell into decline and how Australia succeeded to become economically successful yet failed to adhere to Britain's initial interests.
The Fatal Shore March 10, 2006
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
The book is a fascinating account of the history of Australia. The early years, the time of the penal colonies, are most interesting, and the material should be a story of courage and survival that will hold any reader. As the author suggests, the early history of Australia may be known to many, but rarely has it been clearly depicted in narrative form.
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