Almost half of the convicts who came to Australia came to Van Diemen's Land. There they found a land of bounty and a penal society, a kangaroo economy and a new way of life. In this book, James Boyce shows how the convicts were changed by the natural world they encountered. Escaping authority, they soon settled away from the towns, dressing in kangaroo skin and living off the land. Behind the official attempt to create a Little England was another story of adaptation, in which the poor, the exiled and the criminal made a new home in a strange land. This is their story, the story of Van Diemen's Land.

"With the founding of Melbourne in 1835, a flood of settlers began spreading out across the Australian continent. In three years more land - and more people - were conquered than in the preceding fifty. In 1835 James Boyce brings this pivotal moment to life. He traces the power plays in Hobart, Sydney and London, and describes the key personalities of Melbourne's early days. He conjures up the Australian frontier - its complexity, its rawness and the way its legacy is still with us today. And he asks the poignant question largely ignored for 175 years; could it have been different?"--Publisher description.

Essays, stories and poems on Tasmanians' changing relationship with nature. This book is published to celebrate the Tasmanian Land Conservancy's 20th birthday

Fugitive History: The Art of Julie Gough celebrates Gough's art practice, which has been central to her search for, and creation of, an identity for over twenty years. As an Aboriginal woman whose family from Tasmania had moved to Victoria and left behind connections to place and history, this search became as much about negotiating absence, distance, and lack, as discovery. This title includes essays by Brigita Ozolins, artist and senior lecturer at the Tasmanian College of the Arts; James Boyce, author of Born Bad and Van Diemen's Land, which won the Tasmanian Book Prize; and Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll, Professorial Fellow and Chair of Global Art History in the Department of Art, Curating and Visual Studies at the University of Birmingham.

Provides an examination of issues put forward by Keith Windschuttle in Fabrication of Aboriginal history; six issues raised - a) evidence provided for Fabrication's conclusions about the cause of Aboriginal deaths b) Windschuttle's claims about the causes of black-white violence c) ignorance or deceit? Fabrication's use of primary sources d) Fabrication and Aboriginal culture e) the 'Last Test': how probable is Fabrication? f) the Tasmanian tradition and Fabrication's case: how 'left' is orthodox?; cites several sources not referred to by Windschuttle; sets out argument in relation to many of Windschuttle's assertions; refers often to 'Whitewash'; asserts that Windschuttle deliberately omitted reference to accounts that conflict with what he believes; presents evidence that refutes many of Windschuttle's claims; states that 'The reason Windschuttle omitted ... obvious and essential primary material is not clear'