Here is Australia as those before us saw it: not a history from the official records, not an interpretation of events written from hindsight.
This is the story of Australia and the Australian people, recorded as it happened by the people who were there.
Harry Gordon has turned to sources often neglected by historians: the eyewitness - professional journalists trained to observe and faithfully record.
To read their accounts is to re-;live the great events in Australia's history. Here is Samuel Irwin on the spot at the Eureka Stockade; here is Nat Gould watching Carbine win the Melbourne Cup, Joe Melvin dodging bullets to record the capture of the Kelly gang at Glenrowan.
Here, too, are the first-hand accounts of men and women who were part of the events they recorded: Ludwig Leichhardt describes his trek across the continent; Mary GIlmore reports from the Australian settlement in Paraguay; Captain De Groot defends his notorious dash on to the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Here are the political battles and the social fads, the disasters that shocked the nation and the trivia that reflected the moods of a young society.