Dancing with Strangers: Text Classics

Dancing with Strangers: Text Classics

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Author: Inga Clendinnen

Format: Paperback / softback

Number of Pages: 352


A highly awarded work of non-fiction, Dancing with Strangers is a close analysis of the initial encounter between the British settlers of New South Wales and Australia?s first peoples. Dancing with Strangers is Inga Clendinnen?s seminal account of the moment in January 1788 when the First Fleet arrived in Sydney Harbour and a thousand British men and women, some of them convicts and some of them free, encountered the Australians living there. 'These people mixed with ours,? wrote a British observer after landfall, 'and all hands danced together.? What followed would shape relations between the peoples for the next two centuries.Winner, Kiriyama Prize 2004Winner, Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction, NSW Premier?s Literary Awards 2004 Winner, Best History Book, Queensland Premier?s Literary Awards 2004
Description
Author: Inga Clendinnen

Format: Paperback / softback

Number of Pages: 352


A highly awarded work of non-fiction, Dancing with Strangers is a close analysis of the initial encounter between the British settlers of New South Wales and Australia?s first peoples. Dancing with Strangers is Inga Clendinnen?s seminal account of the moment in January 1788 when the First Fleet arrived in Sydney Harbour and a thousand British men and women, some of them convicts and some of them free, encountered the Australians living there. 'These people mixed with ours,? wrote a British observer after landfall, 'and all hands danced together.? What followed would shape relations between the peoples for the next two centuries.Winner, Kiriyama Prize 2004Winner, Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction, NSW Premier?s Literary Awards 2004 Winner, Best History Book, Queensland Premier?s Literary Awards 2004
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C
Chris Emmerson
Dancing With Strangers

In Dancing With Strangers, Inga Clendinnen eloquently portrays the experiences of British settlers in colonial Australia from the very first moment. She gives an account of the relations with the aboriginal people , the treatment of the convicts, the struggles of the free settlers and the difficulties of distance from the mother country . The book traces beliefs, attitudes , morals and values of some of the people from the First Fleet to give an historical view of those founding years. The book is very well sourced from the letters, journals, and diaries of prominent British authorities providing evidence for the view that at the beginning relations with the aboriginals were quite friendly but overtime deteriorated due to cultural difference and a contrary view of ownership.
Clendinnen also gives a stark vision into the life of the convicts and the penal code of law enforced by magistrates ,police and the British government.
Overall the book is very well written and historically enlightening, each view and attitude and story has primary evidence to relate the experiences of our first settlers.