Burke and Wills: Australia Without Apology (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798185687550)

Burke and Wills is the story of one of Australia's most famous expeditions, and one of its most avoidable disasters.

In 1860, the Victorian Exploring Expedition left Melbourne with camels, supplies, public applause and the ambition to cross the Australian continent from south to north. It was meant to prove the courage, wealth and ambition of colonial Victoria. Instead, it became a story of delay, divided command, poor judgement, exhaustion, missed rescue and death.

Robert O'Hara Burke was brave, forceful and determined, but he was the wrong man for the task. William John Wills was younger, more disciplined and more observant, but he too was trapped inside a failing expedition. At Cooper Creek, the famous Dig Tree became the symbol of a tragedy shaped by timing, leadership failure and misunderstanding of the country itself.

This book follows the expedition from Melbourne's gold-rush confidence to the long journey north, the desperate push to the Gulf, the fatal return to Cooper Creek, the deaths of Burke and Wills, the survival of John King and the later transformation of failure into national legend.

Clear, direct and unsentimental, Burke and Wills examines not only the courage of the explorers, but the colonial ambition, arrogance and myth-making that turned disaster into memory.

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