Van Diemen's Land

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Description

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 Van Diemen's Land, 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.

Author Bio

James Boyce is the acclaimed author of Van Diemen's Land, 1835 and Born Bad. His books have been shortlisted for almost every major Australian literary award and he has won the Tasmania Book Prize on two occasions. He is also a professional social worker, who worked for many years in social policy and research and has been involved in the poker-machine debate for nearly twenty years.