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'The Colony' is the story of the marvellously contrary, endlessly energetic early years of Sydney. It is an intimate account of the transformation of a campsite in a beautiful cove to the town that later became Australia's largest and best-known city.

From the sparkling beaches to the foothills of the Blue Mountains, Grace Karskens skilfully reveals how landscape shaped the lives of the original Aboriginal inhabitants and newcomers alike. She traces the ways in which relationships between the colonial authorities and ordinary men and women broke with old patterns, and the ways that settler and Aboriginal histories became entwined. She uncovers the ties between the burgeoning township and its rural hinterland expanding along the river systems of the Cumberland Plain.

This is a landmark account of the birthplace of modern Australia, and a fascinating and richly textured narrative of people and place.

Contents:
Acknowledgements
Conversion Chart
Introduction
1. Deep time and human history: The Sydney experiment
2. Encounters in Eora country
3. The Camp, the canvas
4. 'Food from a common industry': Public farms and Common lands
5. Seeding and breeding
6. Views from Flagstaff Hill
7. Landscape artists: The Macquaries in Sydney
8. The face of the Country
9. Nefarious geographies
10. 'A very bountiful place indeed': Women and country
11. Soft colony
12. Taking possession
13. War on the Cumberland Plain
Aftermath
Epilogue
Abbreviations
Notes
List of Illustrations
Bibliography
Index