Bennelong and Phillip: A History Unravelled

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The first joint biography of Bennelong and Governor Arthur Phillip, two pivotal figures in Australian history the colonised and coloniser and a bold and innovative new portrait of both.

Winner of the 2024 ACT Literary Awards, Non-Fiction
Shortlisted for the 2024 Prime Ministers Literary Award, Australian History
Shortlisted for the 2024 NSW History Award, Australian History Prize and NSW Community and Regional History Prize
Shortlisted for the 2024 Age Book of the Year, Non-Fiction
Shortlisted for the 2024 Ernest Scott Prize
Shortlisted for the 2024 Magarey Medal for Biography
2023 Australian Book Review Books of the Year
2023 Sydney Morning Herald Best Reads of the Year

Bennelong and Phillip were leaders of their two sides in the first encounters between Britain and Indigenous Australians, Phillip the colonys first governor, and Bennelong the Yiyura leader. The pair have come to represent the conflict that flared and has never settled.

Fullagars account is also the first full biography of Bennelong of any kind and it challenges many misconceptions, among them that he became alienated from his people and that Phillip was a paragon of Enlightenment benevolence. It tells the story of the mens marriages, including Bennelongs best-known wife, Barangaroo, and Phillips unusual domestic arrangements, and places the period in the context of the Aboriginal world and the demands of empire.

To present this history afresh, Bennelong & Phillip relates events in reverse, moving beyond the limitations of typical Western ways of writing about the past, which have long privileged the coloniser over the colonised. Bennelongs world was hardly linear at all, and in Fullagars approach his and Phillips histories now share an equally unfamiliar framing.

Reviews

Rich and exciting history telling brave, audacious has the reader thinking deeply about the meaning of history and the role it plays in our lives Fullagars position is ethically scrupulous, and highly objective in research and exposition I recommend this as a book that carries us much further on the journey to a reconciled future and a delicious read to boot. * Victoria Grieves Williams,The Australian *
Kate Fullagars important new work brings a creative and original lens to a foundational relationship Fullagar explores how the two mens shared history did indeed shape Australias, but not simply in the way foundational narratives have tended to represent them Bennelong & Phillip gives us a new, original lens onto this origin story And were offered a much richer, nuanced account of Bennelong, who Fullagar reads in context and on Country She also writes beautifully and clearly. * The Conversation *
'In this significant, entwined biography of both men, Kate Fullagar dispels the myths surrounding Bennelong and reframes the context of Phillips life ... The innovative structure, fluent prose and illuminating analysis make this book an absorbing read ... Not only an important book but a timely one.' * Sydney Morning Herald *
At a moment of profound uncertainty for future relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, Bennelong and Phillip is essential reading. -- Mark McKenna, author of Return to Uluru
Kate Fullagar has achieved something astonishing This is reconciled history at its very best. -- Distinguished Professor Lynette Russell AM
With insight and empathy, Kate Fullagar adds new depth and meaning to this old story of nation-building and imperial dispossession. -- Bill GammageAM, author ofThe Biggest Estate on Earth
Bennelong and Phillip is the foundation story of us the story of Country the story of our nation. -- John Paul Janke, co-host of NITV's The Point
an important book for our current time A fantastic book and a challenging one. * Books+Publishing *
Contact history of a wonderfully vivid and interesting kind. -- Alan Atkinson, author of Elizabeth & John: The Macarthurs of Elizabeth Farm
'This is an important, if not unparalleled work of Australian historiography. It is the sort of book that should receive awards.' * The Newtown Review of Books *

Author Bio

Kate Fullagar is professor of history at the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, in the Australian Catholic University, and co-editor of the journal History Australia. Her book The Warrior, The Voyager and the Artist won the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction at the 2021 NSW Premiers Awards.