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A review by librarianonparade
The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes
5.0
I've never known very much about Transportation or the early history of Australia, and now I wish I'd paid more attention when I was at school over there. Obviously growing up English I was fully aware of the history between the two countries and the insults flung back and forth - 'Pommies', 'convicts' and the like, but there never was any real understanding of the history of those insults.
So it's interesting to see just how deeply rooted Transportation, or the 'System' as it was known, was in Australia's early history. It wouldn't be far wrong to say that Australia as a colony would not have existed at all, or if it had, it is unlikely any free settlement could have survived, let alone prospered, were it not for convict labour. It was the absolutely bedrock of society, the sine qua non, and yet at the same time a source of deep shame to the 'Exclusives', the upper-crust of free society, who tried to white-wash it out of knowledge and history. Indeed, as Hughes argues, it is only really in the last 20 years that early Australian history has been taught in schools - prior to that, there was a national blinkeredness, a desire to pretend that Australia society was not built on 'the Stain' or 'the Taint'.
This book is both a history of Australia and an insightful look into whether the penal experiment of Transportation succeeded. The main aims of Transportation were to eradicate England of the criminal element, in the misguided belief that criminality was hereditary and ingrained, rather than something caused by poverty, inequality and lack of opportunity; and to serve both as a horrifying deterrent to potential criminals and as a source of reformation and redemption for those criminals exiled from their homeland. In both respects, Hughes argued, it can be considered a failure, not always, not exclusively, but fairly comprehensively. There was a chance for redemption for some; some ex-convicts certainly found life in Australia an opportunity to better themselves and gain wealth and position, but they could rarely escape their convict past - 'one a convict, always a convict' - and there was a definite social gulf between the 'Exclusives' and the 'Emancipists'.
This is the first book by Hughes I've read and I'm definitely keen to read more. His 'Rome' is on my Christmas list!
So it's interesting to see just how deeply rooted Transportation, or the 'System' as it was known, was in Australia's early history. It wouldn't be far wrong to say that Australia as a colony would not have existed at all, or if it had, it is unlikely any free settlement could have survived, let alone prospered, were it not for convict labour. It was the absolutely bedrock of society, the sine qua non, and yet at the same time a source of deep shame to the 'Exclusives', the upper-crust of free society, who tried to white-wash it out of knowledge and history. Indeed, as Hughes argues, it is only really in the last 20 years that early Australian history has been taught in schools - prior to that, there was a national blinkeredness, a desire to pretend that Australia society was not built on 'the Stain' or 'the Taint'.
This book is both a history of Australia and an insightful look into whether the penal experiment of Transportation succeeded. The main aims of Transportation were to eradicate England of the criminal element, in the misguided belief that criminality was hereditary and ingrained, rather than something caused by poverty, inequality and lack of opportunity; and to serve both as a horrifying deterrent to potential criminals and as a source of reformation and redemption for those criminals exiled from their homeland. In both respects, Hughes argued, it can be considered a failure, not always, not exclusively, but fairly comprehensively. There was a chance for redemption for some; some ex-convicts certainly found life in Australia an opportunity to better themselves and gain wealth and position, but they could rarely escape their convict past - 'one a convict, always a convict' - and there was a definite social gulf between the 'Exclusives' and the 'Emancipists'.
This is the first book by Hughes I've read and I'm definitely keen to read more. His 'Rome' is on my Christmas list!