Claiming a Continent won the non-fiction prize at the 1998 South Australian Festival Awards for Literature. Now acclaimed author David Day (John Curtin: A Life) has updated his groundbreaking and accessible history of Australia to cover the events of the past five years: the Republic referendum, John Howard and the Reconciliation process. Provocative and daring, Day has established himself in the top echelon of Australian historians by not being afraid of challenging Australia's accepted historical narratives. In Claiming a Continent, Day explores the events which have shaped Australia from 1788 to today, and places them within the broader context of the ancient continent's long and inglorious story of possession, dispossession and proprietorship. this story still continues and, in the twenty-first century, is as relevant and divisive as ever.