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Paradise in Chains: The Bounty Mutiny and the Founding of Australia
Celebrated historian Diana Preston presents betrayals, escapes, and survival at sea in her account of the mutiny of the Bounty and the flight of convicts from the Australian penal colony.
The story of the mutiny of the Bounty and William Bligh and his men's survival on the open ocean for 48 days and 3,618 miles has become the stuff of legend. But few realize that Bligh's escape across the seas was not the only open-boat journey in that era of British exploration and colonization. Indeed, 9 convicts from the Australian penal colony, led by Mary Bryant, also traveled 3,250 miles across the open ocean and some uncharted seas to land at the same port Bligh had reached only months before.
In this meticulously researched dual narrative of survival, acclaimed historian Diana Preston provides the background and context to explain the thrilling open-boat voyages each party survived and the Pacific Island nations each encountered on their journey to safety. Through this deep-dive, readers come to understand the Pacific Islands as they were and as they were perceived, and how these seemingly utopian lands became a place where mutineers, convicts, and eventually the natives themselves, were chained.
The story of the mutiny of the Bounty and William Bligh and his men's survival on the open ocean for 48 days and 3,618 miles has become the stuff of legend. But few realize that Bligh's escape across the seas was not the only open-boat journey in that era of British exploration and colonization. Indeed, 9 convicts from the Australian penal colony, led by Mary Bryant, also traveled 3,250 miles across the open ocean and some uncharted seas to land at the same port Bligh had reached only months before.
In this meticulously researched dual narrative of survival, acclaimed historian Diana Preston provides the background and context to explain the thrilling open-boat voyages each party survived and the Pacific Island nations each encountered on their journey to safety. Through this deep-dive, readers come to understand the Pacific Islands as they were and as they were perceived, and how these seemingly utopian lands became a place where mutineers, convicts, and eventually the natives themselves, were chained.
333 pages, Hardcover
First published November 7, 2017
26 people are currently reading
1218 people want to read
About the author
Diana Preston
42 books116 followersBorn and raised in London, Diana Preston studied Modern History at Oxford University, where she first became involved in journalism. After earning her degree, she became a freelance writer of feature and travel articles for national UK newspapers and magazines and has subsequently reviewed books for a number of publications, including The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times. She has also been a broadcaster for the BBC and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and has been featured in various television documentaries.
Eight years ago, her decision to write "popular" history led her to The Road to Culloden Moor: Bonnie Prince Charlie and the '45 Rebellion (Constable UK, 1995). It was followed by A First Rate Tragedy: Robert Falcon Scott and the Race to the South Pole (Houghton Mifflin, 1998), The Boxer Rebellion (Walker & Company, 2000), Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy (Walker & Company, 2002) and now, Before The Fallout: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima.
In choosing her topics, Preston looks for stories and events which are both compelling in their own right and also help readers gain a wider understanding of the past. She is fascinated by the human experience-what motivates people to think and act as they do‹and the individual stories that comprise the larger historical picture. Preston spent over two years researching Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy. She did a remarkable amount of original research for the book, and is the first author to make full use of the German archives and newly discovered papers that illuminate both the human tragedy and subsequent plots to cover up what really happened. Preston traveled to all the key locations of the tragedy, experiencing firsthand how cold the water off the Irish coast near Cobh would have been in early May when the Lusitania sank, and how eerie it was to stand inside what remains of the U-20 (now at the Strandingsmuseum in West Jutland, Denmark) where the U-boat captain watched the Lusitania through his periscope and gave the order to fire. Of the many artifacts she reviewed, it was her extensive reading of the diaries and memoirs of survivors that had the biggest impact on her. The experience of looking at photographs and touching the scraps of clothing of both survivors and those who died when the Lusitania sank provided her with chilling pictures: The heartbreaking image of a young girl whose sister's hand slipped away from her was one that kept Preston up at night.
When not writing, Preston is an avid traveler with her husband, Michael. Together, they have sojourned throughout India, Asia, Africa, and Antarctica, and have climbed Mount Kinabalu in Borneo, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, and Mount Roraima in Venezuela. Their adventures have also included gorilla-tracking in Zaire and camping their way across the Namibian desert.
Diana and Michael Preston live in London, England.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
February 4, 2018
5★
“. . . saw several large war canoes approaching fast. As well as men each carried young women who, standing on high platforms, performed ‘a great many droll wanton tricks.’ These included exposing their genitals while their companions shouted and chanted. Wallis's crew, deprived of female company for months, interpreted the ‘so well proportioned’ women's gestures as sexual enticement and rushed to the ship's rails but, in fact, Tahitians believed that by exposing themselves toward the Dolphin the women were opening a portal for their ancestral gods, allowing them to channel their power against the newcomers . . .”
This wonderful history of the colonisation of Australia and some of the Pacific islands reads almost like an adventure story with countless quotations from journals, diaries, letters, reports, articles and books. The people are alive and lively, and you can easily equate them to people today. Well, maybe there’s not so much genital-waving at passing ships.
There are accounts of Cook and the First Fleet, the Aborigines in Australia, the penal colony, the dramatic escape of convicts who sailed much as Bligh did in an open boat, and much about the other island “paradises” in the Pacific. But I’ve chosen to focus on Bligh just to give a sense of the detail and descriptiveness of this book, and he’s the character most readers will have heard of.
Bligh was such a troubled, troublesome man, always worried about money and how he would support his wife and four children. Nothing wrong with that, you’d think, but the ways he connived and cheated and lied throughout his career were colourful indeed. His fiery outbursts and threats (and floggings) were notorious, and he was always quick to blame anyone handy for things that went wrong.
There will be plenty of armchair psychologists today who might look at Bligh’s behaviour and diagnose his "condition”, but at the time, I think he was mostly put in the too-hard basket by his superiors. I’m sure they didn’t quite know what to do with him, but he was often passed over for promotion and put under someone else’s supervision.
“Cook's death led to a series of promotions and changes of responsibility, though not for Bligh. Lieutenant Gore became commander of the Resolution. One of Bligh's subordinates—a master's mate—was promoted over his head to be a lieutenant as another had been earlier in the voyage.”
Eventually the British decided to rid London of some dreadful eyesores by emptying the Hulks – the stinking, rotting prison ships moored in the middle of the Thames – and send the smelly, infested, infected, ragged prisoners to the other side of the world.
This opened up a whole new reason for travel and trade between England and the Pacific region, and after serving on other ships, still being passed over for his own command, Bligh was eventually given a ship.
Many readers would be aware of the famous mutiny on the Bounty by Fletcher Christian and some of the crew. What they may not be aware of is that the two had served together on other ships, and Bligh had taken the younger man under his wing, teaching him navigation (at which he was apparently particularly skilled), and they had become great friends. Christian seemed to have managed to escape the temper tantrums and blaming . . . until he didn’t.
The Bounty left in 1787 to collect breadfruit to take back to England. There are wonderful accounts of the trip and the people and places. But Bligh's explosive temper was finally directed at his supposedly good friend Christian one too many times, a few months before the 1789 French Revolution, Christian and some of the crew staged their own revolution, a mutiny, sending Bligh and some others in the launch and turning them loose to make their own way across the Pacific. Here’s what was one of the last straws for the mutineers:
“The next day, while taking a turn on the quarterdeck, the pile of coconuts stored between the guns caught Bligh's eye. Staring harder he decided some had been stolen. Fryer suggested the pile had been flattened by people walking over it during the night but Bligh would not listen and ordered every man with coconuts aboard to produce them. Bligh interrogated every one of his officers and men about exactly how many they had bought and how many they had eaten. According to Morrison, he especially singled out Christian, who responded: ‘I do not know sir, but I hope you don't think me so mean as to be guilty of stealing yours,’ to which Bligh replied, ‘Yes, you damned hound, I do—You must have stolen them from me or you could give a better account of them.’ Then broadening his attack to include the other officers, he thundered, ‘God damn you, you scoundrels, you are all thieves alike, and combine with the men to rob me—I suppose you'll steal my yams next, but I'll sweat you for it, you rascals. I'll make half of you jump overboard before you get through Endeavour Strait.’”
Well, that was certainly never going to happen! The several boats belonging to the Bounty were in poor condition because Bligh never ensured they were properly maintained (someone else's fault, of course), so the mutineers put him and the others in the one sound launch they had, gave them a sextant and some supplies, and turned them loose.
A supreme sailor (if nothing else), Bligh ran a tight 'ship' with almost no rations, and by island-hopping, made it to Timor and thence to England. Preston has covered the whole story in fascinating detail). Eventually (it's always eventually with Bligh - he seemed to wear people down), he was given another command and later the governorship of NSW and the growing penal colony. He made the most of it. When he arrived, Governor King granted Bligh over 1200 acres of land and retired, so that the newly installed Governor Bligh could grant King a nice parcel of a 790 acre farm which King named “Thanks”.
It would be funny if these unauthorised grants weren’t illegal and hadn’t inflamed everybody else. Bligh’s later attempts to end the profiteering of some of the wealthier settlers (many were now freed prisoners or new settlers), eventuated in yet another mutiny - the Rum Rebellion – when he was put under virtual house arrest by the rebels and finally put on a boat where he swore on his honour to return straight to Britain. True to form, he fled instead to Tasmania until Britain finally recalled him and the rebellious corps home.
His replacement was Governor Lachlan Macquarie, a decent fellow by all accounts, who gave his own opinion of his predecessor.
“Macquarie, who would serve as governor for eleven years and put the colony on a sound and prosperous footing, found Bligh ‘revengeful in the extreme and I am sure he would be delighted to hang, draw and quarter all those who deprived him of his government.’ He later described Bligh as ‘certainly a most disagreeable person to have any dealings, or public business to transact with; having no regard whatever to his promise or engagements however sacred, and his natural temper is uncommonly harsh, and tyrannical in the extreme. He is certainly generally detested by high, low, rich and poor . . .”
There is so much more to these adventures than this troubled man, but I can’t resist some of his stories. How about this for a captain’s power? You won’t get paid if you don’t make me the beneficiary of your will!
“Thomas Ledward, the acting surgeon, however, disclosed in a letter to his uncle from Batavia some more surprising and onerous financial terms Bligh imposed upon him and others. Bligh would not advance money ‘unless I would give him my power of attorney and also my will, in which I was to bequeath him all my property; this he called by the name of proper security. This unless I did, I should have got no money, though I showed him a letter of credit from my uncle and offered to give him a bill of exchange upon him. In case of my death I hope this matter will be clearly pointed out to my relations.’*
* Ledward was drowned when his ship was lost with all hands on his way back to Britain and it is believed Bligh did indeed profit from his will.”
I found this absolutely compelling reading, and anyone who is the least bit interested in Australian and Pacific history of the time should make a point of finding this and enjoying real history based on serious research. There are heaps of footnotes and pages of bibliography, so if you want to do more research yourself, go for it!
My thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted about Bligh. But there’s more than Bligh, so much more. All those islands, the mutineers making new lives, the court cases in England. Wonderful!
“. . . saw several large war canoes approaching fast. As well as men each carried young women who, standing on high platforms, performed ‘a great many droll wanton tricks.’ These included exposing their genitals while their companions shouted and chanted. Wallis's crew, deprived of female company for months, interpreted the ‘so well proportioned’ women's gestures as sexual enticement and rushed to the ship's rails but, in fact, Tahitians believed that by exposing themselves toward the Dolphin the women were opening a portal for their ancestral gods, allowing them to channel their power against the newcomers . . .”
This wonderful history of the colonisation of Australia and some of the Pacific islands reads almost like an adventure story with countless quotations from journals, diaries, letters, reports, articles and books. The people are alive and lively, and you can easily equate them to people today. Well, maybe there’s not so much genital-waving at passing ships.
There are accounts of Cook and the First Fleet, the Aborigines in Australia, the penal colony, the dramatic escape of convicts who sailed much as Bligh did in an open boat, and much about the other island “paradises” in the Pacific. But I’ve chosen to focus on Bligh just to give a sense of the detail and descriptiveness of this book, and he’s the character most readers will have heard of.
Bligh was such a troubled, troublesome man, always worried about money and how he would support his wife and four children. Nothing wrong with that, you’d think, but the ways he connived and cheated and lied throughout his career were colourful indeed. His fiery outbursts and threats (and floggings) were notorious, and he was always quick to blame anyone handy for things that went wrong.
There will be plenty of armchair psychologists today who might look at Bligh’s behaviour and diagnose his "condition”, but at the time, I think he was mostly put in the too-hard basket by his superiors. I’m sure they didn’t quite know what to do with him, but he was often passed over for promotion and put under someone else’s supervision.
“Cook's death led to a series of promotions and changes of responsibility, though not for Bligh. Lieutenant Gore became commander of the Resolution. One of Bligh's subordinates—a master's mate—was promoted over his head to be a lieutenant as another had been earlier in the voyage.”
Eventually the British decided to rid London of some dreadful eyesores by emptying the Hulks – the stinking, rotting prison ships moored in the middle of the Thames – and send the smelly, infested, infected, ragged prisoners to the other side of the world.
This opened up a whole new reason for travel and trade between England and the Pacific region, and after serving on other ships, still being passed over for his own command, Bligh was eventually given a ship.
Many readers would be aware of the famous mutiny on the Bounty by Fletcher Christian and some of the crew. What they may not be aware of is that the two had served together on other ships, and Bligh had taken the younger man under his wing, teaching him navigation (at which he was apparently particularly skilled), and they had become great friends. Christian seemed to have managed to escape the temper tantrums and blaming . . . until he didn’t.
The Bounty left in 1787 to collect breadfruit to take back to England. There are wonderful accounts of the trip and the people and places. But Bligh's explosive temper was finally directed at his supposedly good friend Christian one too many times, a few months before the 1789 French Revolution, Christian and some of the crew staged their own revolution, a mutiny, sending Bligh and some others in the launch and turning them loose to make their own way across the Pacific. Here’s what was one of the last straws for the mutineers:
“The next day, while taking a turn on the quarterdeck, the pile of coconuts stored between the guns caught Bligh's eye. Staring harder he decided some had been stolen. Fryer suggested the pile had been flattened by people walking over it during the night but Bligh would not listen and ordered every man with coconuts aboard to produce them. Bligh interrogated every one of his officers and men about exactly how many they had bought and how many they had eaten. According to Morrison, he especially singled out Christian, who responded: ‘I do not know sir, but I hope you don't think me so mean as to be guilty of stealing yours,’ to which Bligh replied, ‘Yes, you damned hound, I do—You must have stolen them from me or you could give a better account of them.’ Then broadening his attack to include the other officers, he thundered, ‘God damn you, you scoundrels, you are all thieves alike, and combine with the men to rob me—I suppose you'll steal my yams next, but I'll sweat you for it, you rascals. I'll make half of you jump overboard before you get through Endeavour Strait.’”
Well, that was certainly never going to happen! The several boats belonging to the Bounty were in poor condition because Bligh never ensured they were properly maintained (someone else's fault, of course), so the mutineers put him and the others in the one sound launch they had, gave them a sextant and some supplies, and turned them loose.
A supreme sailor (if nothing else), Bligh ran a tight 'ship' with almost no rations, and by island-hopping, made it to Timor and thence to England. Preston has covered the whole story in fascinating detail). Eventually (it's always eventually with Bligh - he seemed to wear people down), he was given another command and later the governorship of NSW and the growing penal colony. He made the most of it. When he arrived, Governor King granted Bligh over 1200 acres of land and retired, so that the newly installed Governor Bligh could grant King a nice parcel of a 790 acre farm which King named “Thanks”.
It would be funny if these unauthorised grants weren’t illegal and hadn’t inflamed everybody else. Bligh’s later attempts to end the profiteering of some of the wealthier settlers (many were now freed prisoners or new settlers), eventuated in yet another mutiny - the Rum Rebellion – when he was put under virtual house arrest by the rebels and finally put on a boat where he swore on his honour to return straight to Britain. True to form, he fled instead to Tasmania until Britain finally recalled him and the rebellious corps home.
His replacement was Governor Lachlan Macquarie, a decent fellow by all accounts, who gave his own opinion of his predecessor.
“Macquarie, who would serve as governor for eleven years and put the colony on a sound and prosperous footing, found Bligh ‘revengeful in the extreme and I am sure he would be delighted to hang, draw and quarter all those who deprived him of his government.’ He later described Bligh as ‘certainly a most disagreeable person to have any dealings, or public business to transact with; having no regard whatever to his promise or engagements however sacred, and his natural temper is uncommonly harsh, and tyrannical in the extreme. He is certainly generally detested by high, low, rich and poor . . .”
There is so much more to these adventures than this troubled man, but I can’t resist some of his stories. How about this for a captain’s power? You won’t get paid if you don’t make me the beneficiary of your will!
“Thomas Ledward, the acting surgeon, however, disclosed in a letter to his uncle from Batavia some more surprising and onerous financial terms Bligh imposed upon him and others. Bligh would not advance money ‘unless I would give him my power of attorney and also my will, in which I was to bequeath him all my property; this he called by the name of proper security. This unless I did, I should have got no money, though I showed him a letter of credit from my uncle and offered to give him a bill of exchange upon him. In case of my death I hope this matter will be clearly pointed out to my relations.’*
* Ledward was drowned when his ship was lost with all hands on his way back to Britain and it is believed Bligh did indeed profit from his will.”
I found this absolutely compelling reading, and anyone who is the least bit interested in Australian and Pacific history of the time should make a point of finding this and enjoying real history based on serious research. There are heaps of footnotes and pages of bibliography, so if you want to do more research yourself, go for it!
My thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted about Bligh. But there’s more than Bligh, so much more. All those islands, the mutineers making new lives, the court cases in England. Wonderful!
February 23, 2020
In a word.....superb. Preston is an extraordinary historian and I have read a couple of her other books with the same reaction. Her research is impeccable and, of course, she has picked an interesting subject.....combining the Mutiny of the Bounty with the history of Australia and the transportation of criminals penalty practiced by the British justice system.
The famous mutiny has been the subject of various novels and films and the author delves a little deeper into the major players in that incident through their backgrounds and personalities. In all forms of retelling this story, most authors agree that Captain Bligh bordered on the psychotic but fail to touch on his talents as well. He was a top drawer navigator and geographer and had traveled with Captain Cook on his initial voyages to the South Pacific. The most amazing part of the mutiny is the survival of Bligh and those who were faithful to him in an open boat 48 day, 3,000+ mile trip through partially uncharted waters to safety.
The story then switches to life in the first penal colony in Australia, an unknown land with an unknown population and it was pure hell....insufficient supplies, unfriendly indigenous inhabitants, and harsh treatment.. Finally the convict transportation ended in 1868 and delivered a total of 162,000 people from Britain to Australia.
It appears that the life and history of Fletcher Christian, the most famous of the mutineers, is somewhat of a mystery once the uninhabited Pitcairn Island became the home of the fugitives. Was he murdered, did he commit suicide, or die of natural causes? The truth has evaded historians for years and will remain a mystery.
This is a sensational book and highly recommended.
One post script: I once told a GR friend from Australia that I would love to visit Pitcairn Island and he said "you just can't get there". The present population of 90+ individuals is almost totally isolated from the world on their tiny island in the vastness of the south Pacific.
The famous mutiny has been the subject of various novels and films and the author delves a little deeper into the major players in that incident through their backgrounds and personalities. In all forms of retelling this story, most authors agree that Captain Bligh bordered on the psychotic but fail to touch on his talents as well. He was a top drawer navigator and geographer and had traveled with Captain Cook on his initial voyages to the South Pacific. The most amazing part of the mutiny is the survival of Bligh and those who were faithful to him in an open boat 48 day, 3,000+ mile trip through partially uncharted waters to safety.
The story then switches to life in the first penal colony in Australia, an unknown land with an unknown population and it was pure hell....insufficient supplies, unfriendly indigenous inhabitants, and harsh treatment.. Finally the convict transportation ended in 1868 and delivered a total of 162,000 people from Britain to Australia.
It appears that the life and history of Fletcher Christian, the most famous of the mutineers, is somewhat of a mystery once the uninhabited Pitcairn Island became the home of the fugitives. Was he murdered, did he commit suicide, or die of natural causes? The truth has evaded historians for years and will remain a mystery.
This is a sensational book and highly recommended.
One post script: I once told a GR friend from Australia that I would love to visit Pitcairn Island and he said "you just can't get there". The present population of 90+ individuals is almost totally isolated from the world on their tiny island in the vastness of the south Pacific.
March 13, 2024
I am unswervingly stuck on nautical stories....nothing to be done now except to let this run its course.
March 21, 2023
Diana Preston's Paradise in Chains is meticulously researched and written in a clear and readable style. In my opinion, it falls short of its ambition and falls short of greatness. The two stories it tells are both fascinating. Yet I don't feel enough of an argument was made to justify them needing to be told together in a single book.
The story of the mutiny on the Bounty has been told and retold many times in the two-hundred thirty odd years since it occurrence. Readers at the time and readers now are equally fascinated by the happening of that fateful April night, 1789 on a British ship in the South Pacific. One Fletcher Christian and a small band of cohorts did conspire to steal their ship from its Captain, the short of stature and even shorter of temper Mr. William Bligh. Dumping their now former Captain and his loyalists into a tiny schooner and leaving them to die, Christian and his men sailed off westward into the night, never to be seen again by western eyes. (Most of them, anyway.)
We may never have known any of this save for the fact that Capt. Bligh in fact, did not die. Instead, he and his remaining men set off on a now legendary 3,600 mile open boat journey to safety. It is on this portion of the Bounty story that our author chooses to focus her book. She compares it through an interstitial narrative to another long and harrowing, but far less famous open boat journey that took place just two years later. That of Mary Broad and her fellow prison escapees from Port Jackson in the newly established penal colony of New South Wales. Escaping from famine, scurvy, brutal treatment and no chance of parole, they made their way to freedom (briefly) in the port of Timor, over 3,000 miles north around all of western and northern Australia.
While the two stories do share a remarkable number of similarities, my primary issue with the book is that it does nothing to argue the case for their comparison nor to help the reader understand why the author chose to try to weave the narratives together. Each piece of each story is told, alternating one after the other, until the end. Then the book ends with a post-script about the fate of Christian and his fellow mutineers.
So much has already been written about the Bounty, Christian, and Bligh. (See The Bounty: by Caroline Alexander for what I feel is the definitive telling of the tale of Capt. Bligh and Mstr. Christian.) I think I would have preferred a book that focused solely on The First Fleet, Port Jackson and Mary Broad. That book would had to have mentioned Capt. Bligh but could have cast him as a secondary character rather than a co-lead. I suspect it would have made a better book, though it likely would have sold far fewer copies.
The story of the mutiny on the Bounty has been told and retold many times in the two-hundred thirty odd years since it occurrence. Readers at the time and readers now are equally fascinated by the happening of that fateful April night, 1789 on a British ship in the South Pacific. One Fletcher Christian and a small band of cohorts did conspire to steal their ship from its Captain, the short of stature and even shorter of temper Mr. William Bligh. Dumping their now former Captain and his loyalists into a tiny schooner and leaving them to die, Christian and his men sailed off westward into the night, never to be seen again by western eyes. (Most of them, anyway.)
We may never have known any of this save for the fact that Capt. Bligh in fact, did not die. Instead, he and his remaining men set off on a now legendary 3,600 mile open boat journey to safety. It is on this portion of the Bounty story that our author chooses to focus her book. She compares it through an interstitial narrative to another long and harrowing, but far less famous open boat journey that took place just two years later. That of Mary Broad and her fellow prison escapees from Port Jackson in the newly established penal colony of New South Wales. Escaping from famine, scurvy, brutal treatment and no chance of parole, they made their way to freedom (briefly) in the port of Timor, over 3,000 miles north around all of western and northern Australia.
While the two stories do share a remarkable number of similarities, my primary issue with the book is that it does nothing to argue the case for their comparison nor to help the reader understand why the author chose to try to weave the narratives together. Each piece of each story is told, alternating one after the other, until the end. Then the book ends with a post-script about the fate of Christian and his fellow mutineers.
So much has already been written about the Bounty, Christian, and Bligh. (See The Bounty: by Caroline Alexander for what I feel is the definitive telling of the tale of Capt. Bligh and Mstr. Christian.) I think I would have preferred a book that focused solely on The First Fleet, Port Jackson and Mary Broad. That book would had to have mentioned Capt. Bligh but could have cast him as a secondary character rather than a co-lead. I suspect it would have made a better book, though it likely would have sold far fewer copies.
November 24, 2025
A very enjoyable book. Its subject matter did stray off course from time to time, but was necessary for the story the authors were trying to tell.
August 6, 2022
Paradise In Chains: The Bounty Mutiny and the Founding of Australia
By: Diana Preston
This is a history book that is based on a pile of facts about the Pacific Ocean and its geography, aboriginal people and first European contact with them, HMS Bounty's mutiny and the founding of a penal colony in Australia etc.
In the first 1/3rd of the book are given the short and precise facts of the European first ever travels and discoveries in the Pacific Ocean and their written accounts of the first landings and contact with the aboriginal people inhabited on the islands there like Tahiti etc. by famous men like William Dampier, Joseph Banks, Captain James Cook etc.
The second part of the book informs us about Captain William Bligh's expedition of breadfruit, and the mutiny led by Fletcher Christian former protegee of Captain Bligh himself.
The third and the last portion of the book is mixed with accounts relating the consideration and founding of penal colony of Australia; its arrangements by Arthur Phillip, the first Governor of Australia; and the second breadfruit voyage of Captain Bligh, court-martial reports of Bounty mutiny, Bligh's governorship of Australia and finally the deposing of Bligh from governorship.
And so many relating information.
In my opinion, first portion of the book was a jumble of facts such that keeping track of an expedition, people names and dates was a big problem for me. Anyhow, after the eighth chapter, the facts began to clear and so my interest started to build up further to continue reading.
Overall, this is a good book for history lovers or for people who take interest in the history of Britain's Sea expeditions, its founding of penal colonies, the transportation of convicts and the Founding of Australia and its forefathers.
Not surely a must read but recommended!
By: Diana Preston
This is a history book that is based on a pile of facts about the Pacific Ocean and its geography, aboriginal people and first European contact with them, HMS Bounty's mutiny and the founding of a penal colony in Australia etc.
In the first 1/3rd of the book are given the short and precise facts of the European first ever travels and discoveries in the Pacific Ocean and their written accounts of the first landings and contact with the aboriginal people inhabited on the islands there like Tahiti etc. by famous men like William Dampier, Joseph Banks, Captain James Cook etc.
The second part of the book informs us about Captain William Bligh's expedition of breadfruit, and the mutiny led by Fletcher Christian former protegee of Captain Bligh himself.
The third and the last portion of the book is mixed with accounts relating the consideration and founding of penal colony of Australia; its arrangements by Arthur Phillip, the first Governor of Australia; and the second breadfruit voyage of Captain Bligh, court-martial reports of Bounty mutiny, Bligh's governorship of Australia and finally the deposing of Bligh from governorship.
And so many relating information.
In my opinion, first portion of the book was a jumble of facts such that keeping track of an expedition, people names and dates was a big problem for me. Anyhow, after the eighth chapter, the facts began to clear and so my interest started to build up further to continue reading.
Overall, this is a good book for history lovers or for people who take interest in the history of Britain's Sea expeditions, its founding of penal colonies, the transportation of convicts and the Founding of Australia and its forefathers.
Not surely a must read but recommended!
April 29, 2021
Turned to this hoping for new insights into Mary Bryant and the escaped convicts from Botany Bay. Well researched, but little new to add to Mary's story. Enjoyed the book as I am in awe of the convicts and Bligh pulling off these incredible open sea voyages.
May 2, 2018
Diana Preston has written a book that has exhaustive research and is rich with antidotes intertwining stories of exploration, adventure and the resulting social impact of British culture on the discovery of South Sea paradises Australia and Tahiti. The focus is mainly on the maritime stories with the Bounty voyage, Captain Bligh’s open boat rescue, and the sailing of convicts from Britain to settle Australia (highlighted by a little known convict escape in another daring open boat journey).
It occurred to me when selecting the book that we perhaps did not need another book about the Bounty Mutiny. But Preston’s research and focus on Bligh rather than Fletcher Christian (who was only 24 when he lead the mutiny and never wrote anything about his role only to live out his life in isolation) offers a unique perspective on the event, the people, and the times. By placing the Bounty story in the context of the overall exploration (exploitation) of the South Seas and the early Australian colony the reader gets an appreciation for the time.
At times the book is so dense and proud of its research that the narrative takes some concentration to follow given the numerous names and events covered. But the reward is great as one discovers that Paradise is more romantic when viewed from far away.
(I might mention that I have read most all of Diana Preston’s books and have mostly found them to be extremely interesting. She gives her husband credit as a co-writer on this book. They also wrote a highly entertaining fiction series EMPIRE OF THE MOGHUL under the name Pen name Alex Rutherford.)
It occurred to me when selecting the book that we perhaps did not need another book about the Bounty Mutiny. But Preston’s research and focus on Bligh rather than Fletcher Christian (who was only 24 when he lead the mutiny and never wrote anything about his role only to live out his life in isolation) offers a unique perspective on the event, the people, and the times. By placing the Bounty story in the context of the overall exploration (exploitation) of the South Seas and the early Australian colony the reader gets an appreciation for the time.
At times the book is so dense and proud of its research that the narrative takes some concentration to follow given the numerous names and events covered. But the reward is great as one discovers that Paradise is more romantic when viewed from far away.
(I might mention that I have read most all of Diana Preston’s books and have mostly found them to be extremely interesting. She gives her husband credit as a co-writer on this book. They also wrote a highly entertaining fiction series EMPIRE OF THE MOGHUL under the name Pen name Alex Rutherford.)
June 11, 2019
This book recounts the famous mutiny on the Bounty as well as the British settling of Australia which occurred at around the same time and included much overlap. In general, sea voyages in this era were back-breaking and dangerous in a number of dimensions. Mutinies were common but the stereotype of Bligh largely comes through as true in this reading although he actually flogged his sailors much less than the average British naval captain even including such luminaries as Captain Cook. Unfortunately Bligh suffered from a bad personality, high self-regard and poor empathy which is what probably led to the mutiny. These characteristics probably actually saved him and his crew after they were expelled from the Bounty into an open boat but he nearly suffered another mutiny there as well. On the settling of Australia, then just known as New South Wales, the founding of the prison colony was understandably difficult and they lived near starvation for extended periods of time never figuring out how the local Aboriginals were able to thrive in the harsh landscape. In contrast to the welcoming Tahitians, the more communal Aboriginals did not take to them. For anyone interested in this historical period, Polynesian culture or simply a good adventure would enjoy this book.
November 21, 2023
I listened to this book while driving my car. I'm still not sure what the mutiny on the Bounty and the founding of Australia have to do with each other other than Bligh got kicked out of Australia after only about 2 years of being its governor. The Bounty's mission was to collect breadfruit trees from Tahiti and transport them to the West Indies to provide food for slaves there. Well, they all ended up at the bottom of the Pacific because of the mutiny. The story of the mutiny is well-known. I was more interested in the founding of Australia and the convict settlers. It should have been 2 separate books. So many names were mentioned, but without there being any physical descriptions or backstories, I couldn't remember who was who and who did what, other than Bligh, Fletcher, and the lone female convict, Mary. I think I would have been more interested in Mary's story than anything else. She must have been an amazing woman to escape the penal colony with a couple men and her young child and make it all the way to Dutch Indonesia.
November 1, 2018
Mildly interesting history of the mutiny of the Bounty and the British settlement of Australia. Unfortunately, I found it only mildly readable. Captain William Bligh had a super-sized ego and a toxic attitude toward pretty much everyone else. It’s no wonder that his crew felt that self-exile on a remote Pacific island struck them as a better idea than putting up with him anymore. Initially I had trouble understanding why the author chose to combine Bligh’s story with the story of Australia’s founding. Near the end of his career, Bligh was governor of Australia. That explained the connection. However, I’m still not really clear on why the story of Mary Bryant/Broad’s escape from the Australian penal colony got so some attention in the book. Overall, if you’re a Bounty buff then you might appreciate this book. Otherwise, I’d skip it.
December 19, 2017
Ever since seeing the movie Mutiny on the Bounty with Marlon Brando I have been fascinated by that story. I was delighted to find Paradise in Chains hoping to find out more about this exotic story. It turns out this book was so much more. Included in this book was the story of the founding of Australia.
The amount of research done to tell the tale is unbelievable, yet it is told in a way that is filled with details and dovetails the two narratives beautifully. It seemed that it could have taken a lifetime to produce this book, but to my surprise Diana Preston has written ten previous books of historical narrative. Now which will I choose next? Perhaps Cleopatra and Antony, another subject that I have been eager to know more about.
The amount of research done to tell the tale is unbelievable, yet it is told in a way that is filled with details and dovetails the two narratives beautifully. It seemed that it could have taken a lifetime to produce this book, but to my surprise Diana Preston has written ten previous books of historical narrative. Now which will I choose next? Perhaps Cleopatra and Antony, another subject that I have been eager to know more about.
January 29, 2018
I had the pleasure of interviewing Diana for my column @NatGeo, Book Talk (https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2...) and it was a fascinating half hour. It tells three intertwined stories: the brutal tale of The Bounty, which becme the most notorious ship in the British navy, its captain, William Bligh, a byword for brutality and sadism. It also takes us inside the first year at Botany Bay. And then the expedition that was sent out to try and track down the Bounty Mutineers.
One of the most interesting points she made was how Bligh and Fletcher Christian had a kind of “bromance;” and how it could be said that the European populating of Australia began with a mass rape.
One of the most interesting points she made was how Bligh and Fletcher Christian had a kind of “bromance;” and how it could be said that the European populating of Australia began with a mass rape.
March 19, 2019
Historian Diane Preston deftly and expertly tells three stories, the founding of Australia, the breadfruit voyages, and the Bligh mutineers. Her sources include records and journals from the voyages and transcripts from various court martials and trials. She provides excellent context in terms of colonial rivalries between Britain, France and the Netherlands, and concerns about civil unrest, crime and punishment before, during and after the American revolution and the French revolution. Her story emphasizes how disruptive the loss of the American colonies was to Britain’s imperialist aspirations, and how important the rapid growth of the new colony of Australia was to replace the lost overseas markets. All three stories included unplanned and unexpected heroic open boat voyages.
January 12, 2018
This is a general history that broadly brings together various facets of the British government in the Pacific, using Captain Bligh as a kind of glue to bring it together. This is a hard sell (Bligh is an ass and the suspense is in wondering what idiotic thing he'll do next), but it works. The colonization of Australia isn't something that is often written about in the same (literary) breath as the Bounty Mutiny--in retrospect, it should be.
January 26, 2018
Excellent way of learning about the history of Australia
The author accomplishes an interesting merger between factual correct documentation and an entertaining writing style, which makes this book an excellent read
The author accomplishes an interesting merger between factual correct documentation and an entertaining writing style, which makes this book an excellent read
February 11, 2022
Absolutely riveting. I couldn't stop reading. I knew next to nothing about the events covered and am eager for more. Diana Preston has written one of the most engaging historical books I've ever read.
January 30, 2018
Such an interesting read. Love the way she tells history like it's a story. Didn't want to put book down.
December 10, 2018
Interesting but very slow going. It drags on so bad it’s hard to get through.
May 4, 2021
a wonderful reads....one of my favorite books ever
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 20, 2022
[Review to come]
May 20, 2023
Very interesting subject but the writing is very dry and the author downplays violence against women at one point calling a mass rape an “orgy”
September 15, 2023
Amazing scholarship. At times interesting "story" of history. However, it was far too detailed for my tastes, so I was even tempted to give up on the book.
July 19, 2018
I enjoyed this extensive history of the Bounty mutiny and England's many explorations of the Pacific, including the lasting impact it had on the people of Tahiti. However, do NOT be fooled by the second half of the book's title. Relatively speaking, there are very few pages dedicated to the colonists' lives on Australia. The majority of the book focuses on the trips of the Bounty and other ships, particularly those of Captains Cook and Bligh, and the ships whose voyages led them to Tahiti. A very well-researched, interesting history.
I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
February 14, 2023
Damn few books on Australian history around. This is a good one. If you don't like the fact that it also covers European explorations of Tahiti and Hawaii, well, you do have a point, what does it have to do with Australia? But you also miss a point: those events in Tahiti and Hawaii, and the news of them, really did affect the First Fleet.
Lots of books on early settlement of North America (here is a good one: https://www.amazon.com/The-War-That-M...). Australia is another beast. For all that breast-beating, no Australian has written a good book on the Abos. Why?
ABOS, man, black dudes with fire-hardened spears!
Lots of books on early settlement of North America (here is a good one: https://www.amazon.com/The-War-That-M...). Australia is another beast. For all that breast-beating, no Australian has written a good book on the Abos. Why?
ABOS, man, black dudes with fire-hardened spears!
dnf
February 9, 2018I was really looking forward to reading this because it sounded like an interesting premise and I love reading nonfiction. When I started reading it, however, I found the writing really dry. It felt like reading a boring textbook. Unfortunately, this ended up in my dnf pile.
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