Includes bibliographical references (pages 266-267) and index.

A shipload of English convicts headed by Captain General Arthur Philip sailed into Sydney Cove, disembarked, and unfurled the British flag over the mainland of Australia. Professor Manning Clark of the Australian National University has written a lively, extremely readable narrative history of a land whose first white settlers were the criminal castaways of civilization. Australia's social, cultural, and political growth is traced through its many stages: the birth of the original colony; the influence of the churchmen; the social reforms of Governor Macquarie; the territorial expansion caused by the Gold Rush of 1851; the conflict between the squatters, town bourgeoisie, and the workers - up through the effect of two world wars and the modern emergence of the prosperous Commonwealth of Australia.