Good reading for Australia Day

[epictetus]

Apart from BBQs and inter-cultural cantankerousness, Aussies of all stripe couldn't do better than to take some time out to read Girt by David Hunt, an "unauthorised" history of Australia, and a cheeky one at that. No one escapes his satire, but it's an affectionate history for all that. An example:

[Governor] Hunter was initially blind to the depredations of the Corps. Instead, he blamed all of New South Wales's ills on its women, whom he insisted were "refractory and disobedient" and "at the bottom of every infamous transaction in the colony". Women, Hunter insisted, frittered away their days doing unfathomable womeny things while their menfolk toiled to feed them. They also kept having children, who were even more useless than their mothers. Hunter begged [Colonial Secretary] Portland not to send him any more of these "irreclaimable wretches" and urged that the colony be converted into the world's largest men's shed, where a chap might spend many happy years without ever being nagged to put the bins out.



www.amazon.com/Girt-Unauthorised-Australia-David-Hunt-ebook/dp/B00DNMNH8O/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485065158&sr=1-1&keywords=girt+david+hunt

[epictetus]

But caveat emptor (buyer beware!), one of the negative comments among the Amazon reviews was this: 


I could not get past the first chapter of this rubbish, it was so filled with racist commentary. It might be meant to be funny, but I didn't find it to be.


So, perhaps not a book for some. I thought it was a hoot. As I said, no one escapes the satire. 

[mipela]

Hi Epic,
Your comments re "Girt" are spot on, it's pulp fiction or a poor kind.

I have just read an interesting book by Inga Clendinnen, "Dancing With Strangers".
Via in depth research she chronicles the arrival of Governor Arthur Phillip and the ensuing early years of the colony.

Cheers,
Mipela

[epictetus]

Thanks Mip. Will look up the Inga Celendinnen book.

I enjoyed the Girt book and am reading the follow-up. It may not be reliable history, even if its underbelly portrayal is accurate, but it has reawakened my interest in Australian history.

PS. I really like your avatar.

Cheers
Epic

[cster]

I shall seek out Girt at my Library. It has my attention if he see's an advantage in a womenless nation, no more nagging is a kind of heaven.
We'd still build roads but for the biker heaven.