Pan Macmillan Australia

Colonial Ambition
Cochrane, Peter

RRP
A$39.95

Colonial Ambition tells the story of the politicians and would-be politicians of Sydney, who were driven by a determination to lift themselves and their new colony to a higher level. They wanted parliamentary liberty, though they could not agree on what that meant, and that contest over meaning, centred in Sydney, was unremitting.

The fight for responsible government and democracy is a dialogue between the local and the global, the periphery and the centre (Sydney and London), the city and the bush; between economy and polity, the politics of legislature and the street, and between the public and the private lives of the key players: WC Wentworth, Sir George Gipps, Robert Lowe, Lord Howick (Earl Grey), Henry Parkes, Charles Cowper and Lord John Russell.

Written with great brio and verve, and paced like a thriller, Peter Cochrane has brought to life the various players in a way which is very rare in the writing of Australian history. Colonial Ambition is testament that Australia does have a rich and exciting political history.

Author Information

Historian Peter Cochrane is the author of the critically acclaimed companion volume to the ABC television series, Australians at War (ABC Books, 2001) and Simpson and the Donkey: The Making of a Legend (Melbourne University Press, 1992). He is currently at work on a new project, Governor Bligh's Factotum, which blends historical fact with the techniques of fiction to create a tale of public uproar and private tragedy in early Sydney. Based on the life of enterprising emancipist Andrew Thompson, who became Chief Constable at the Hawkesbury River and factotum to William Bligh, Governor of NSW, the book tells the story of the tumultuous events that led to the Rum Rebellion of 1808.

ALL TITLES BY Cochrane, Peter

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