The story of Australia's white settlement. It empties the vacuum cleaner with which modern Australians are at last cleaning under the carpet where for generations, the dust of truth was swept.

From his first days at Sydney Cove, Adam lives the shame of a nation's founding.

It is the first account of life for Australian convicts told through convict eyes, since Marcus Clarke's renowned For the Term of His Natural Life published in 1870.

The Aborigine too finds his securities shattered, faced with the terrible realisation that his heritage is crumbling.