The Southern Tree of Liberty explained: class struggle, popular democracy and representative government in New South Wales before

In 2006 The Federation Press published my book, The Southern Tree of Liberty - The Democratic Movement in New South Wales before 1856. It received better reviews overseas than in Australia, where some reviewers persisted in assimilating it to the standard account of a British-influenced, elite-led, peaceful transition to responsible self-government in 1856. The "radicals" that the book concentrated on were seen as just part of that story, a tiny group of agitators whom no one took seriously - certainly not the established historians who wrote those reviews