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Biographical note
Robert Hughes, art critic of Time magazine and twice winner of the American College Art Association's F. J. Mather Award for distinguished criticism, is author of The Shock of the New, and of Heaven and Hell in Western Art. He is also author of the acclaimed Nothing if Not Critical, a work on Frank Auerbach; Barcelona, and Culture of Complaint, essays on the fraying of America. Robert Hughes died in August 2012.A unique phantasmagoria of crime and punishment, which combines the shadowy terrors of Goya with the tumescent life of Dickens
Peter Ackroyd, The Times
A triumph of research, passion and fine writing. I found it an extraordinary and compelling book to read, one of fantastic scope and imagination; truly a tour de force
William Shawcross
Riveting
The Book Magazine
With its mood and stature...<i>The Fatal Shore</i> is well on its way to becoming the standard opus on the convict years
Sydney Sunday Telegraph
An enthralling account of the convict settlement of Australia, thoroughly researched and excellently written, brimming over with rare and pungent characters, and tales of pathos, bravery, and horror
Peter Matthiessen
Popular history in the best sense...its attention to human detail and its commanding prose call to mind the best work of Barbara Tuchman
Washington Post
A landmark history that confronts Britain’s colonisation of Australia.
In The Fatal Shore, historian and critic Robert Hughes offers a vivid, unflinching account of Britain’s colonisation of Australia; a history built on the forced transportation of convicts and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples. Drawing on meticulous research, Hughes recreates the harsh realities of the penal system, the endurance of those sent to the colonies, and the profound human cost of empire.
‘An enthralling account… brimming over with rare and pungent characters, and tales of pathos, bravery, and horror’ Peter Matthiessen
‘A unique phantasmagoria of crime and punishment, which combines the shadowy terrors of Goya with the tumescent life of Dickens' Peter Ackroyd, The Times