{"title":"Alan Atkinson","description":"\u003cp\u003eAlan Atkinson's works delve deeply into the rich tapestry of Australian history, weaving detailed narratives that explore the lives and legacies of past figures and communities. Through titles such as \u003cem\u003eElizabeth and John\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Europeans in Australia\u003c\/em\u003e, readers encounter meticulous research paired with engaging storytelling that brings history vividly to life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBlurring the lines between biography and historical analysis, Atkinson’s writing offers profound insights into the social and cultural fabric of earlier times. His books invite readers to reflect on the complexities of identity and heritage within the unfolding story of Australia.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"elizabeth-and-john-by-alan-atkinson-9781761170317","title":"Elizabeth and John","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eWinner, 2023 Ernest Scott Prize\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eWinner, 2023 NSW Premier's History Awards, Australian History Prize\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eShortlisted, 2023 Prime Minister's Literary Awards, Australian History Prize\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA landmark and revealing joint biography of Elizabeth and John Macarthur, from one of Australia's most respected historians.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eElizabeth and John Macarthur were the first married couple to travel voluntarily from Europe to Australia, arriving in 1790, both aged 23, within three years of the initial invasion. John Macarthur soon became famous in New South Wales and beyond as a wool pioneer, a politician, and a builder of farms at Parramatta and Camden. For a long time, Elizabeth's life was regarded as contingent on John's and, more recently, John's on Elizabeth's.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn the multi-award-winning \u003cem\u003eElizabeth and John\u003c\/em\u003e, acclaimed historian Alan Atkinson draws on his work on the Macarthur family over 50 years to explore the dynamics of their strong and sinewy marriage, and family life across two generations. With the truth of Elizabeth and John Macarthur's relationship much more complex and deeply human than other writers have suggested, Atkinson provides a finely drawn portrait of a powerful partnership.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'Based on fifty years of research and reflection by one of this country's most original and creative scholars and finest writers, here is the story of the world made by settler Australia's greatest family, the Macarthurs. No Australian historian has ever explored the inner lives of a married couple, their family and their milieu with such skill, passion and intensity. No one has brought to any subject in Australian history deeper insight into dreams, ambitions and tragedy that the British occupation of this continent entailed. \u003cem\u003eElizabeth and John\u003c\/em\u003e is a stunning achievement by one of Australia's greatest-ever historians.' — Frank Bongiorno\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'Professor Atkinson's portrait is intimate and affectionate. It reads well while maintaining the highest standards of academic rigour.' — \u003cem\u003eThe Canberra Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'Through this remarkable study of two key figures in the history of early colonial New South Wales and especially of their marriage, Alan Atkinson here conducts a master class in connecting the personal, the intimate and the local with worldwide processes of colonisation, migration and capitalist expansion. In his capacious historical vision, family life and connections in all their complexity become the thread that holds colonial history, and perhaps history generally, together.' — Ann Curthoys\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'This magisterial work takes us into a captivating world of 19th-century Australia through a compelling, eloquent, and beautifully drawn study of the remarkable lives of John and Elizabeth Macarthur.' — Joy Damousi\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'Nobody sees as far into the minds and hearts of the early Australian colonists as Alan Atkinson. In this fascinating double-portrait, based on a lifetime's research, he reveals Australia's first power-couple as never before: together and apart; as they saw themselves and as they were seen by their friends and enemies; at the apex of a fast-developing colony and at the far edge of global networks of family affection, commercial ambition and imperial power. A tour de force of scholarship, imagination, and literary power.' — Graeme Davison\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'With trademark lyricism, Alan Atkinson builds a rich and moving picture of the social, intellectual and material world of the Macarthurs. \u003cem\u003eElizabeth and John\u003c\/em\u003e transforms our understanding of early New South Wales and two of its most significant figures.' — Lisa Ford\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'The Macarthurs have long been the subjects of caricature, even wilful distortion. In this superb book, Alan Atkinson has restored their humanity, exploring their characters, their relationships between themselves and with others, the ideas and influences that shaped them and how they in turn helped shape colonial Australia. This is history at its best, based on vast research and deep understanding.' — Stephen Foster\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'This was evidently a labour of love and a fascination for Atkinson. The reader is treated to such a detailed level of knowledge and understanding that one could easily think Atkinson knew Elizabeth and John, personally. Possibly, after all his research, Atkinson felt he did.' — \u003cem\u003eHearsay\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'As with a novel, I found myself wondering what the characters were doing while I was away from the book.' — \u003cem\u003eInside Story\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'Enthralling and powerful. Alan Atkinson writes with the easy, lyrical elegance that comes of deep historical understanding and fine, slow history. In \u003cem\u003eElizabeth and John\u003c\/em\u003e he weaves together the lives of the Macarthurs with the life of the mind, and brilliantly navigates the mysterious mirror maze between them.' — Grace Karskens\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eElizabeth and John\u003c\/em\u003e is a truly amazing work of history. A triumph. This is historical scholarship at its dazzling best. Beautifully produced and written, Alan Atkinson's intimate portrait of Elizabeth and John Macarthur's marriage also opens windows onto the wider worlds of 19th-century England, the European Enlightenment and early New South Wales during the years of the British invasion and occupation. Attentive to his subjects' inner selves and sensibilities and the imperatives of an imperial and patriarchal order, Atkinson's book is truly a tour de force. — Marilyn Lake\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'At once intimate and epic, inspired and deeply compassionate, this is the kind of book that can only come from a lifetime of close reading. Meticulously researched, imaginatively conceived and breathtaking in its ability to retrieve past worlds both private and public. An exceptional work of biography and history written by one of Australia's most original historians.' — Mark McKenna\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46825897951468,"sku":"9781761170317","price":39.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/1004323482815.jpg?v=1758114472"},{"product_id":"the-europeans-in-australia-by-alan-atkinson-9781742234960","title":"The Europeans in Australia","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is the duty of historians to be, wherever they can, accurate, precise, humane, imaginative—using moral imagination above all—and even-handed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe first of three volumes of the landmark, award-winning series \u003cem\u003eThe Europeans in Australia\u003c\/em\u003e gives an account of early settlement by Britain. It tells of the political and intellectual origins of this extraordinary undertaking that began during the 1780s, a decade of extraordinary creativity and the climax of the European Enlightenment.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eVolume One, The Beginning, examines the forces that led to the penal colony at Port Jackson and the first twenty-five years of white settlement. Atkinson examines, as few historians have done before, the political and intellectual origins of this extraordinary undertaking. It began during the 1780s, a decade of extraordinary creativity and the climax of the European Enlightenment. The purpose of settlement might seem uninspiring, but the fact that this was to be a community of convicts and ex-convicts raised profound questions about the common rights of the subject, the responsibility of power, and the possibility of imaginative attachment to a land of exile. Atkinson explores the imagery and technique of European power as it made its first impact on Australia. He argues that the Europeans were not simply conquerors motivated by brutal or short-term colonising imperatives. The Europeans' culture was ancient and infinitely complex, thickly woven with ideas about spirituality, authority, self, and land, all of which influenced the development of Australia. The possession of land and conflict with Aboriginal peoples were at issue, but so were the ancient habits of Europeans themselves.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe culmination of an extraordinary career in the writing and teaching of Australian history, \u003cem\u003eThe Europeans in Australia\u003c\/em\u003e grapples with the Australian historical experience as a whole from the point of view of the settlers from Europe. Ambitious and unique, it is the first such large, single-author account since Manning Clark's \u003cem\u003eA History of Australia\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46850036695276,"sku":"9781742234960","price":59.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/8251283482808.jpg?v=1759076914"},{"product_id":"the-europeans-in-australia-by-alan-atkinson-9781742234977","title":"The Europeans in Australia","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e'It is the duty of historians to be, wherever they can, accurate, precise, humane, imaginative - using moral imagination above all and even-handed.'\u003c\/i\u003e - Alan Atkinson\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe second of three volumes of the landmark, award-winning series \u003ci\u003eThe Europeans in Australia\u003c\/i\u003e gives an account of early settlement by Britain. It tells of the political and intellectual origins of this extraordinary undertaking that began during the 1780s, a decade of extraordinary creativity and the climax of the European Enlightenment.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eVolume Two, Democracy, takes the story from around 1815 to the early 1870s. By exploring the nineteenth-century 'communications revolution', Atkinson casts new light on the way Australia first found its place in a 'global' world. This volume is more than a story of geography and politics. It describes the way people thought and felt. Throughout the trilogy, Atkinson traces subtle and sudden shifts of 'common imagination' by analysing the lives of both powerful and ordinary Australians. He sets out the ideas and the imagery that moved and marked the people.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis book, like all his work, is grounded in thorough and rigorous scholarship yet imbued with compassion and insight. Written 'from the inside', it is, as he says, history '\u003ci\u003ecaught up with the flesh and memory it describes'.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe culmination of an extraordinary career in the writing and teaching of Australian history, \u003ci\u003eThe Europeans in Australia\u003c\/i\u003e grapples with the Australian historical experience as a whole from the point of view of the settlers from Europe. Ambitious and unique, it is the first such large, single-author account since Manning Clark's \u003ci\u003eA History of Australia.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46850039054572,"sku":"9781742234977","price":59.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/8251453482808.jpg?v=1759076935"},{"product_id":"the-house-of-blue-glass-by-alan-atkinson-9781761170379","title":"The House of Blue Glass","description":"\u003cp\u003eAcclaimed historian Alan Atkinson  author of the award-winning \u003ci\u003eElizabeth and John: The Macarthurs of Elizabeth Farm\u003c\/i\u003e  pieces together the life of Penelope Lucas and the pivotal role she played in building the Macarthur empire. While she is known as the family governess, Atkinson reveals that Penelope was primarily an accountant whose bookkeeping work made an important difference to the Macarthurs' success.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePenelope Lucas came to Australia in 1805, in her thirties, unmarried  she was the first well-educated woman to travel independently from Europe to Australia  and looking forward to living on inherited income. While Elizabeth Macarthur was unsurprisingly upset when her husband, John, arrived back from three years in England with a woman she had never heard of, Penelope went on to live with the Macarthurs for over thirty years and became close friends with Elizabeth.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this revelatory work, Atkinson brings together fifty years of scholarship as he explores the gender dynamics of the Macarthur household and the life of a single woman of means in Georgian England and early colonial Sydney.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A prodigious feat of historical imagination.'  Matthew Allen\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Exquisitely written and meticulously researched.'  Alecia Simmonds\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'As delicately observational as it is learned...Atkinson writes with the lightest touch.'  Alison Bashford\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47288928207084,"sku":"9781761170379","price":44.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/a116f79e4630b331703ee1f17585c397.jpg?v=1770603124"},{"product_id":"the-europeans-in-australia-by-alan-atkinson-9780868409979","title":"The Europeans in Australia","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the third and final volume of the landmark, award-winning series \u003ci\u003eThe Europeans in Australia\u003c\/i\u003e that gives an account of settlement by Britain. It tells of the various ways in which that experience shaped imagination and belief among the settler people from the eighteenth century to the end of World War I.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eVolume Three, \u003ci\u003eNation\u003c\/i\u003e, tells the story of Australian Federation and the war with a focus on ordinary habits of thought and feeling. In this period, for the first time, the settler people began to grasp the vastness of the continent, and to think of it as their own. There was a massive funding of education, and the intellectual reach of men and women was suddenly expanded, to an extent that seemed dazzling to many at the time. Women began to shape public imagination as they had not done before. At the same time, the worship of mere ideas had its victims, most obviously the Aboriginal people, and the war itself proved what vast tragedies it could unleash.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe culmination of an extraordinary career in the writing and teaching of Australian history, \u003ci\u003eThe Europeans in Australia\u003c\/i\u003e grapples with the Australian historical experience as a whole from the point of view of the settlers from Europe. Ambitious and unique, it is the first such large, single-author account since Manning Clark's \u003ci\u003eA History of Australia\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWinner of the Victorian Prize for Literature 2015. Winner of the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Prize for Non-Fiction. Winner of the CHASS Australia Book Prize. Winner of the Australian History Prize in the 2015 NSW Premier's History Awards and joint winner of the Ernest Scott Prize 2015. Shortlisted for the Australian History Prize in the 2015 Prime Minister's Literary Award, the NSW Premier's Awards Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction and the Colin Roderick Award.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47464317649132,"sku":"9780868409979","price":59.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780868409979-the-europeans-in-australia.jpg?v=1775047063"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.pro\/collections\/alan-atkinson.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}