The Great Race: The Race Between the English and the French to Complete the Map of Australia, by David Hill
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The Great Race: The Race Between the English and the French to Complete the Map of Australia, by David Hill
Free PDF Ebook Online The Great Race: The Race Between the English and the French to Complete the Map of Australia, by David Hill
On the afternoon of 8 April 1802, in the remote southern ocean, two explorers had a remarkable chance encounter. Englishman Matthew Flinders and Frenchman Nicolas Baudin had been sent by their governments on the same quest: to explore the uncharted coast of the great south land and find out whether the west and east coasts, four thousand kilometres apart, were part of the same island. And so began the race to compile the definitive map of Australia. These men's journeys were the culmination of two hundred years of exploration of the region by the Dutch - most famously Abel Tasman - the Portuguese, the Spanish and by Englishmen such as the colourful pirate William Dampier and, of course, James Cook. The three-year voyages of Baudin and Flinders would see them endure terrible hardships in the spirit of discovery. They suffered scurvy and heat exhaustion, and Flinders was shipwrecked and imprisoned - always knowing he was competing with the French to produce the first map of this mysterious continent. Written from diaries and other first-hand accounts, this is the thrilling story of men whose drawings recorded countless previously unknown species and turned mythical creatures into real ones, and whose skill and determination enabled Terra Australis Incognita to become Australia.
The Great Race: The Race Between the English and the French to Complete the Map of Australia, by David Hill- Amazon Sales Rank: #3091979 in Books
- Brand: Hill, David
- Published on: 2015-05-12
- Released on: 2015-05-12
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x 1.50" w x 6.00" l, 1.54 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 400 pages
Review An epic tale told concisely and confidently by Hill The Times Exquisite Herald
About the Author During his remarkable career, David Hill has been chairman then managing director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, chairman of the Australian Football Association, chief executive and director of the State Rail Authority NSW, chairman of Sydney Water Corporation and chairman of CREATE, a national organisation responsible for representing the interests of young people and children in institutional care. He is the author of the bestsellers The Forgotten Children and 1788. He lives in Sydney.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Excellent story of the European discovery of Australia By Colin Pettit What a wonderful story that delves into the lives of those intrepid souls that set out on the mammoth task to sail and map the coastline of Australia.This was an extraordinarily difficult task and many lives were lost before the new found knowledge was able to be carried back to Europe. Even war between England & France did not prevent the free exchange of knowledge about New Holland between these rivals.I see parallels in this story with contemporary efforts to land humans on the Moon, with a major difference being that the Moon, to date, has not been colonised.Successful Australian coastline navigators had the challenge of disease, shipwreck, and the limits of technology to deal with and those that were able to manage these challenges were rewarded handsomely with grants of land in the new colony or commercial success as an author.This book has deepened my knowledge of the European discovery of Australia and I found the story of Flinders missing some major East Coast rivers on his first journey north of Port Jackson to be particularly poignant. I'm sure he would have been mightily embarrassed once they were found.Another story I found fascinating was the prediction, by experienced sailors, of the existence of Bass Strait due to tidal movements in the area. Once confirmed this provided ships a faster route to Port Jackson.I haven't finished this engaging story as yet (I'm about 40% through) however, I can tell this will be a book I will refer to for the rest of my life. It is fascinating.Congratulations to David Hill, he has thoroughly researched and authored a book which has all the elements of high adventure, scientific discovery and sheer guts. All that was needed to settle the harsh and unforgiving land of Australia.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. `On the afternoon of 8 April 1802, in a remote part of the Southern Ocean where no ship had ever sailed before, .. By Jennifer Cameron-Smith .. two explorers had a chance encounter.'Those two explorers were Frenchman Nicolas Tomas Baudin, on `Le Geographe', and Englishman Matthew Flinders on `Investigator'. Baudin and Flinders had been sent by their respective governments to explore the uncharted coastal areas of Australia. They had also been requested to ascertain whether the west and east coast of Australia were separated by sea, or were part of a single land mass.While the stated focus of this book is on the `race between the English and the French to complete the map of Australia', a number of the early chapters cover the story of the European discovery (by the Dutch, English, French, Portugese and Spanish) of Australia through planned expeditions and accidental journeys. While this information - as well as a chapter on the early British settlement of Australia - provide a useful summary, it is not all directly relevant to `The Great Race'.Nicolas Baudin's was primarily a scientific expedition, and his two ships (Le Geographe and Le Naturaliste) set sail with a scientific team of 23. Despite a number of drawbacks and challenges including the death of Baudin in 1803, the French ultimately published the first complete coastal map of Australia in 1811. Matthew Flinders published his version three years later and, because of the British victory at Waterloo, it is Flinders's achievements many of us think of first.`I call the whole island Australia or Terra Australis.' (Matthew Flinders- 1804)Matthew Flinders was first shipwrecked and later imprisoned on The Isle de France (Mauritius) for over six years. By the time he returned to England, he had not seen his wife for more than nine years.If you are unfamiliar with the story of the European discovery of Australia, this would be a useful introduction. Mr Hill has included an excellent bibliography for those who want to read further. I learned quite a bit about Baudin's expedition from this book, and the account of Matthew Flinders (and Trim the cat) reinforced Flinders's position as one of the 19th century explorers I most admire.Jennifer Cameron-Smith
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Fascinating subject but in need of a good editor By marko uk Fascinating subject but in need of a good editor, this is too long, often bewildering and geographically vague or inaccurate, (Weipa is not on the eastern coast of Australia's Cape York peninsula but the western one. Which hardly inspires confidence at the beginning of a book on exploration and mapping.)Places such as Adventure Bay pop up with no real context or reason and are never heard of again. Or are not given their modern names or easier identifiers (such as might be achieved by telling us that "Bay of Inlets" is modern Shoalwater Bay) . Flinders and Bass sail off from Sydney in search of a possible strait (later given Bass's name) between Australia and Tasmania and are suddenly inexplicably we realise in Tasmania (a sentence saying why they didn't just follow the mainland coast round through the strait would doubtless have made much clear.) Some people are described as "taking" a boat when it is important to understand (though it never becomes totally clear) that they are stealing it. Episodes get repeated in a sometimes confusing chronology.There is massive pointless sloppiness. Spencer Gulf is said to be named in 1802 after Princess Diana's "great grandfather" the 2nd Earl Spencer. Some schoolboy spottable mistake here surely, given that Diana's birth was then another 159 years in the future (so yes, her great grandfather turns out to be "only" the 6th Earl, so the 2nd Earl had a lot more "greats" to his name than that). Does this matter? Probably not (so why include her in the first place?) but obvious blunders like this do make you wonder about the rest of the book.Tedious often seemingly endlessly rambling pages are padded (the only word) with the preparations in Europe for voyages and for even less obvious reasons the backgrounds and private lives of all concerned. I have given up a third of the way through. Maybe it gets better, but I've tired of hoping so. Reduce its length, add a few linking and explanatory thoughts and clarify the geography would be my advice. Plus easier to read maps, at least in the Kindle edition. And then you'll have a pretty good book.PS. I later went back to this book after writing the above and things picked up shortly after in the matter of describing the mapping of Australia. I have accordingly increased the star rating from two to three. But the infuriating sloppiness in the book's own cartography persists.There is, for instance, a major episode in which Flinders gets wrecked with two ships. Where? Good basic question. The book scarcely gives a clue. It is clearly off the East Coast of Australia, but where, and at what distance from the shore (since no mention is made of the shore)?The nearest to any precision comes only at the end of this long episode when mention is made of it being on Wreck Reef. But where on earth is that? Nothing here tells us, neither is it, nor any clue as to the wreck's location, shown on the book's maps (which turn out to be somewhat clearer on my laptop than on my Kindle).10 minutes' Googling suggests that it is Porpoise Cay in the Wreck Reefs some 230 nautical miles off the present day town of Gladstone. But there is nothing in the book that tells you this. Nothing. I find it breath-taking, insulting even, that the location is regarded as not worth pinpointing for the benefit of those who have bought a book on the mapping of Australia.
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