Macquarie

Grantlee Kieza

Oct 2019 · Bolinda · Narrated by Peter Byrne

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18 hr 9 min

Unabridged

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About this audiobook

Lachlan Macquarie is credited with shaping Australia's destiny, transforming a harsh, foreboding penal colony into an agricultural powerhouse and ultimately a prosperous society. He also helped shape Australia's national character. An egalitarian at heart, Macquarie saw boundless potential in Britain's refuse, and under his rule many former convicts went on to become successful administrators, land owners and business people. However, the governor's ambitions for the colony brought him into conflict with the continent's 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. So was Macquarie the man who sowed the seeds of a new 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 Macquarie's rich and detailed journals. Ultimately, Macquarie laid the foundations for a new nation, but, in the process, he played a part in the dispossession of the continent's first nations. Lover, fighter, egalitarian, autocrat, Lachlan Macquarie is a complex and engaging character who first envisaged the nation we call Australia.

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About the author

Award-winning journalist and bestselling author Grantlee Kieza OAM held senior editorial positions at The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph and The Courier-Mail for many years and was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for his writing. He is a Walkley Award finalist and the author of more than 20 acclaimed books, including the bestsellers Hudson Fysh, The Kelly Hunters, Lawson, Banks, Macquarie, Banjo, Mrs Kelly, Monash, Sons of the Southern Cross, Bert Hinkler, Sister Viv and Mary Penfold. His latest work is Ellen Savage and the Heroes of AHS Centaur (2026).

Peter Byrne has narrated many books for Bolinda including biographies, fiction and an extended series of Quarterly Essays. Peter has also narrated a considerable number of non-fiction works focusing on wartime conflicts and the military, encompassing Vietnam, the Middle East and Gallipoli. Peter divides his time between Melbourne and the Goldfields region of central Victoria.

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