Girt The Unauthorised History of Australia (Audible Audio Edition) David Hunt Audible Studios Books
Download As PDF : Girt The Unauthorised History of Australia (Audible Audio Edition) David Hunt Audible Studios Books
Girt. No word could better capture the essence of Australia....
In this hilarious history, David Hunt reveals the truth of Australia's past, from megafauna to Macquarie - the cock-ups and curiosities, the forgotten eccentrics and Eureka moments that have made us who we are.
Girt introduces forgotten heroes like Mary McLoghlin, transported for the crime of "felony of sock", and Trim the cat, who beat a French monkey to become the first animal to circumnavigate Australia.
It recounts the misfortunes of the escaped Irish convicts who set out to walk from Sydney to China, guided only by a hand-drawn paper compass, and explains the role of the coconut in Australia's only military coup.
Our nation's beginnings are steeped in the strange, the ridiculous, and the frankly bizarre. Girt proudly reclaims these stories for all of us.
Not to listen to it would be un-Australian.Girt The Unauthorised History of Australia (Audible Audio Edition) David Hunt Audible Studios Books
David Hunt takes the title of his volume on Australian history from the national anthem’s line “our home is ‘girt’ by sea.” This word, Girt, is a bit odd, and the story of Australia he tells is filled with similarly unusual words, characters, and events. This tongue-in-cheek history begins with the first Europeans to see the island and presents mistakes, questionable decisions, hilarious personalities, and poor judgement that led a small convict colony at the ends the earth to develop its own successful rum-based economy and freewheeling society in the 19th century. Hunt presents the foibles of the country’s biggest founding names in a witty narrative and mostly understandable Aussie slang. While we were traveling in Australia it was fun to learn the peculiar stories behind some of the names: Mrs. Macquerie’s design and construction of a hospital without bathrooms now used as NSW parliament, Flinder’s sailing around the island with cat and possible male love interest in tow. As a non-Australian, I think I understood most of the jokes, but some certainly were over my head. The short history of Australia is not particularly compelling on its own, but Girt was a solid read, particularly while we were on location.Product details
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Girt The Unauthorised History of Australia (Audible Audio Edition) David Hunt Audible Studios Books Reviews
Not the history book that reads like a dusty set of documents. Australia from pre-white invasion through to c 1820 is laid bare in a humorous yet detailed form from the earliest approaches of the Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch, and English, leading to a critique of James Cook's explorations and the first white settlement on the east coast of the continent. Hunt spares no reputation as he teases out the characters of the explorers and civil and military first settlers. This makes the book very approachable. Hunt's style is easy to read and gives plenty to smile about - no - laugh out loud. The objective is to generate interest of Australians in their history, and the book will be enjoyed by many from other lands wanting to know more about this place we love so dearly.
As the man says Australia even today is a long journey .. ..found far distant for almost everyone. When you travel by sail you can easily succumb to weather or illness. And then your troubles really start on arrival. Early colonizers and their minders overcame a mountain of trouble. Its no wonder politicians in Britain are suspected of having their own interests and those of their cronies at heart..but their ineptitude is another reason. Just look at them trying to deflect the hapless Mrs May from actually delivering the voted result. I look forward to the second book.
Hunt prefaces his Introduction with a quote from Homer Simpson "It's funny because it's true." Both the substance and source of the quote identify the tone of "Girt." Putting it more directly in his Acknowledgements, Hunt says he "wondered whether I could write an Australian history that was both accurate and amusing." Although it is evident that not all readers agree, I think he managed both pretty well. I learned some new things, obtained a better appreciation of some things that I thought I knew, and laughed a lot along the way.
I am not a scholar of Australian history, but have read several serious treatments of the early days covered by this Volume 1 (which roughly concludes with Macquarie's demise in 1824), and Hunt appears scrupulously accurate on the facts. He also adds a good deal not included in standard histories that is not only amusing but sometimes quite telling in its particulars. Of course, what Hunt makes of the facts is another matter. A blurb on the jacket rightly refers to this as "hilarious history." Readers might be forgiven if they occasionally feel awash in puns, clever innuendos and satirical claims. So, probably you should not make this your exclusive source for the history of the persons and period treated! But either as an antidote to drier treatments or simply for a good deal of fun, I am happy to recommend "Girt" --- and I look forward to Volume 2.
Unauthorised (British and Australian spelling - have some respect. )
This is one very funny book. A very long time ago when I was at school we were taught all this rubbish as if Australians were the perfect nation. So thank you David Hunt for doing the research and telling us how it was. I could not stop laughing and I only wish David had written this way back when Australia was seen as " The Best country to live in." Like so many other countries it has its attractions and there are no doubts in my mind that Australia is unique. But it is just too far from the rest of the world for me. I live now in the USA.
I needed a good book on Aussie history to help me with a fiction series, and this book was not only educational but downright hilarious! Hunt makes liberal use of irony and sarcasm, so it's easy to see how someone could take his chapter on Aussie native cultures the wrong way. But it was all in good fun and entirely consistent with his scathing roast of historical figures and European cultures throughout the book. I learned, I laughed, and I plan on reading it again. It was recommended to me by an Australian, and I had more fun reading it than any other book I bought last year.
Having been educated in an era when a Menzian anglophilic view of history was presented as fact, refreshing that an unsanitised (and sadly funny) version is available!
And given what we know about lifestyle, health, law, politics from that era, it is good to see characters like Cook, Macquarie, called out for what they really were, rank self seeking opportunists who would have not cut it in any other era.
Even today, our current conservative govt, and our most hippocritical PM in history, want to continue the anglo biased whitewashing of what was a regrettable era, by further glorifying characters like Cook and Banks.
They were just lead characters in the shameful British and European colonisation of the world, their aim only to exploit and plunder, at the same time treating indigenous humans, fauna and flora as specimens to simply plunder for European museums and collectors.
David Hunt takes the title of his volume on Australian history from the national anthem’s line “our home is ‘girt’ by sea.” This word, Girt, is a bit odd, and the story of Australia he tells is filled with similarly unusual words, characters, and events. This tongue-in-cheek history begins with the first Europeans to see the island and presents mistakes, questionable decisions, hilarious personalities, and poor judgement that led a small convict colony at the ends the earth to develop its own successful rum-based economy and freewheeling society in the 19th century. Hunt presents the foibles of the country’s biggest founding names in a witty narrative and mostly understandable Aussie slang. While we were traveling in Australia it was fun to learn the peculiar stories behind some of the names Mrs. Macquerie’s design and construction of a hospital without bathrooms now used as NSW parliament, Flinder’s sailing around the island with cat and possible male love interest in tow. As a non-Australian, I think I understood most of the jokes, but some certainly were over my head. The short history of Australia is not particularly compelling on its own, but Girt was a solid read, particularly while we were on location.
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