Read the first chapter
The whole of chapter one, free. About 2 min. Turn the pages with the arrows, your keyboard, or a swipe.
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Sunburnt Country A Storyteller's History of Australia
A Word Before We Begin
There is a moment, on a dry lake bed in western New South Wales, where you can stand in somebody's footprints. They are twenty thousand years old. A person walked across soft mud near the shore of Lake Mungo, and the mud set like concrete, and the wind covered them, and the wind uncovered them again in 2003. There is a child's print among them, and a man's, and the marks of heels dug in where someone ran. The archaeologists who found them did the careful thing and reburied most of them, because the elders of the Paakantyi, Ngiyampaa and Mutthi Mutthi people asked them to, and because some things are not exhibits.
But you can still picture it. Someone walking. Someone in a hurry. Twenty thousand years ago, on a continent that already had a very long memory.
That is one way into this story, though the story itself is far older than the mud those feet crossed, and it is worth saying plainly at the start: the history of Australia is not a short history with a long preamble. It is one of the longest continuous human stories on earth, and the part most of us learned at school — the ships, the convicts, the gold, the wars — is a thin crust on top of something enormous.
I have written this book for anyone who wants the whole shape of it, told properly. Not a list of governors. Not a parade of dates to memorise and forget. A story, with people in it, the way you'd tell it to a friend who'd just arrived and asked what this country was.
Two things I've tried to hold to. The first is that the telling has to include the people who were here first, not as a chapter that gets dealt with and then set aside, but as a thread that runs the entire length of the book, because it does. The second is that a nation's history is not a courtroom. I'm not here to hand down a verdict on the past, only to describe it as honestly as I can, including the parts that are difficult, and to notice that Australians have always been interestingly divided about which parts they want to remember.
You'll meet a lot of people in these pages. A Yolŋu man watching sails come over the horizon. A fifteen-year-old pickpocket from London who became, against all odds, a landlady. A Wiradjuri warrior who fought the colonists to a standstill and then negotiated. A Chinese digger at Lambing Flat. A woman at Wave Hill who said no. A prime minister who said sorry.
History is not made of years. It's made of people deciding things, and then other people living with the consequences. Let's begin at the beginning — which is much further back than most of us were taught.
End of chapter one. 10 more chapters and about 16,111 words in the full book.
Swipe or use the arrows to turn the page
What's inside: 11 chapters
- 1. Chapter 1
- 2. Chapter One: The Oldest Country
- 3. Chapter Two: Unknown Coasts
- 4. Chapter Three: The Fatal Shore
- 5. Chapter Four: The Taking of the Land
- 6. Chapter Five: Gold, Greed and Grievance
- 7. Chapter Six: One People, Many Silences
- 8. Chapter Seven: The Great Wound
- 9. Chapter Eight: New Country
- 10. Chapter Nine: The Reckoning
- 11. Afterword: A Note on the Telling
About this book
"Sunburnt Country AussieBk PDF" is a general book by Gerald Smith with 11 chapters and approximately 16,111 words. It covers key insights and practical takeaways on the topic.
This book was created using Inkfluence AI, an AI-powered book generation platform that helps authors write, design, and publish complete books.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "Sunburnt Country AussieBk PDF" about?
"Sunburnt Country AussieBk PDF" is a general book by Gerald Smith covering key insights and practical takeaways on the topic.
How many chapters are in "Sunburnt Country AussieBk PDF"?
The book contains 11 chapters and approximately 16,111 words. Topics covered include Chapter 1, Chapter One: The Oldest Country, Chapter Two: Unknown Coasts, Chapter Three: The Fatal Shore, and more.
Who wrote "Sunburnt Country AussieBk PDF"?
This book was written by Gerald Smith and created using Inkfluence AI, an AI book generation platform that helps authors write, design, and publish books.
Write your own book with AI
Describe your idea and Inkfluence writes the whole thing. Free to start.
Start writingCreated with Inkfluence AI
