Book Synopsis A lively and engaging portrait of a towering and complex figure of Australian colonial history. Lover, fighter, egalitarian, autocrat - Lachlan Macquarie is a complex and engaging character who first envisaged the nation we call Australia. Ultimately, Macquarie laid the foundations for a new nation, but, in the process, he played a part in the dispossession of the continents original people. He chronicles the life and times of a poor Scottish farm boy who joined the British army to make his fortune, saw wars on five continents and clawed his way to the top. So, was Macquarie the man who sowed the seeds of a great nation, or a tyrant who destroyed Aboriginal resistance? In this, the most comprehensive biography yet of this fascinating colonial governor, acclaimed biographer Grantlee Kieza draws on Macquaries rich and detailed journals. However, the governors ambitions for the colony (which he lobbied to have renamed Australia) brought him into conflict with the continents original landowners, and he was responsible for the deaths of Aboriginal men, women and children, brutally killed in a military operation intended to create terror among local Indigenous people. An egalitarian at heart, Macquarie saw boundless potential in Britains refuse, and under his rule many former convicts went on to be successful administrators, land owners and business people. He also helped shape Australias national character.

Lachlan Macquarie is credited with shaping Australias destiny, transforming the harsh, foreboding penal colony of New Holland into an agricultural powerhouse and ultimately a prosperous society. About the Book A lively and engaging portrait of a towering and complex figure of Australian colonial history.

Grantlee kieza banks