The Politics of Grievance: review

Ten years unread under the bed, a few days on Amazon Kindle, and now a review.

A new look at colonial Sydney

by Michael Duffy

History is often written by the winners, and early Australian political history has generally been portrayed as the triumph of bold democrats over reactionary, even dictatorial, governors.

Michael Connor’s PhD thesis [The Politics of Grievance] looks at the 1820s, especially the governorship of Ralph Darling, and shows how Darling was a lot better than he’s often shown, and his foes such as William Wentworth a lot more self-interested and even dishonest.

By spending time with many previously unacknowledged primary sources, Connor shows how misinformation has contributed to the bias too often found in accounts of this period.

The book is a lively and valuable corrective to almost two centuries of error.

Source: Amazon.com

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