Sea People

Winner of the 2019 General History Prize at the NSW Premier's History Award

The revelatory story of the Bible in Australia, from the convict era to the Mabo land rights campaign, Nick Cave, the Bra Boys, and beyond. Thought to be everything from the word of God to a resented imposition, the Bible has been debated, painted, rejected, translated, read, gossiped about, preached, and tattooed.

At a time when public discussion of religion is deeply polarised, Meredith Lake reveals the Bible’s dynamic influence in Australia and offers an innovative new perspective on Christianity and its changing role in our society. In the hands of writers, artists, wowsers, Bible-bashers, immigrants, suffragists, evangelists, unionists, Indigenous activists, and many more – the Bible has played a defining and contested role in Australia.

A must-read for sceptics, the curious, the lapsed, the devout, the believer, and non-believer.

About the Author

Meredith Lake is an historian with a PhD from the University of Sydney, where she has also taught courses in Australian history.For more than a millennium, Polynesians occupied the remotest islands in the Pacific Ocean, an enormous triangle stretching from Hawaii to New Zealand to Easter Island. Polynesians today can trace their roots back to a group of epic voyagers who first explored this vast expanse Sailing in large, double-hulled canoes, they were the first and, until the era of European discovery, the only people ever to have reached this part of the globe. Today, they are widely acknowledged as the world's greatest navigators.

But how did these ancient mariners find all these islands? How did they reach them? Diving deep into the history of the Pacific, Christina Thompson uncovers who these voyagers were, where they came from, and how they managed to colonise every habitable island in Remote Oceania. A thrilling intellectual detective story, Sea People combines the thrill of exploration, the wonder of pursuit, and the drama of a gripping historical puzzle.

About the Author

Christina Thompson is the editor of Harvard Review and the author of Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All, which was shortlisted for a NSW Premier's Literary Award for Nonfiction. A dual citizen of the US and Australia, she lives outside of Boston with her family.