History of the Australian Bushrangers

The work traces the rise, practices, and decline of bushranging in nineteenth-century Australia, examining how transportation, harsh punishments, and colonial conditions produced escaped convicts and organized gangs. It profiles notable leaders and their raids, prison-breaks, bank and mail robberies, sea-borne piracy, and violent encounters with settlers and Indigenous people, and follows successive gangs across colonial geography. Drawing on contemporary reports and official inquiries, it links criminal episodes to legal and social causes, describes measures used to suppress the phenomenon, and assesses its social cost and enduring influence on colonial public opinion.