Table of Contents

List of illustrations; Note on currency and measurements; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. The alienation of land and spread of settlement; 2. Ambitious, avaricious men: an examination of land grantees, 1804–1823; 3. 'A very comfortable situation': a social history of land settlement; 4. The 'best kind of property': farmers and livestock in early Van Diemen's Land; 5. Agriculture; 6. A 'luscious abundance': colonial gardens and gardening; 7. 'If it moves, shoot it': the impact of European settlement on the environment; 8. Farming in a convict colony: the problems of the bush; 9. A 'sadistic frenzy': European-Aboriginal contact; Conclusion; Appendices; Abbreviations; Notes; Select bibliography; Index.

Promotional Information

Van Diemen's Land as a case study in nineteenth-century European expansion and imperialism.

Reviews

"The scarcity of political sociology gives this volume of social history, despite its fashionable division of themes, a more traditional feel. Nevertheless, with its basis in considerable archival research,, this is an interesting and worthwhile study." Rural Sociology "Morgan merits congratulations for bringing her subject within the range of current historiographical concerns." The International History Review