Geoffrey Blainey’s vision of history brings a new insight into the story of a people who crossed the world to plant a new society in a land which rewarded, bewildered, tricked, tantalized and often defeated them.

The physical taming of Australia was swift and for the most part successful – large cities sprang up, democratic experiments were made, and in a series of rushes and marches the grasslands were settled with sheep and cattle, the gold-fields were found and the first wheatlands were ploughed. Emotionally however, its conquest was slow – generations of northern European influences retarded the discovery of Australia as a homeland. Misconceptions about climate and raw materials influenced the first white settlement of the continent, misunderstanding and fear haunted relations with the Aboriginals and northern hemisphere solutions were imposed upon new and peculiarly Australian problems.

In ‘The triumph of the nomads’, Geoffrey Blainey wrote the history of the Aboriginals of ancient Australia. ‘A land half won’ covers the second phase of Australia’s history from the coming of the first fleets to the long drought and depression which ushered in the new Commonwealth in 1901. It offers new explanations of many events in Australian history.