This book investigates how technical and institutional innovation enabled the successful establishment of European settlement in Australia between 1788 and 1860. Geoffrey Raby, an economist and diplomat, challenges the binary historical narratives of Australia as either a site of inevitable destitution or a land of effortless prosperity. By analyzing the economic conditions of the early colonial period, Raby argues that the survival and growth of the colony were driven by the deliberate application of scientific endeavor and creative institutional frameworks rather than mere environmental luck or inevitable failure.

Scholars and historians recognize this work as a significant contribution to the economic historiography of colonial Australia. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the author's rigorous approach to challenging established national myths.