The first joint biography of Bennelong and Governor Arthur Phillip, two pivotal figures in Australian history – the colonised and coloniser – and a bold and innovative new portrait of both.

Australian Book Review Books of the Year 2023
Sydney Morning Herald Best Reads of the Year for 2023

Bennelong and Phillip were leaders of their two sides in the first encounters between Britain and Indigenous Australians, Phillip the colony’s first governor, and Bennelong the Yiyura leader. The pair have come to represent the conflict that flared and has never settled.

Fullagar’s account is also the first full biography of Bennelong of any kind and it challenges many misconceptions, among them that he became alienated from his people and that Phillip was a paragon of Enlightenment benevolence. It tells the story of the men’s marriages, including Bennelong’s best-known wife, Barangaroo, and Phillip’s unusual domestic arrangements, and places the period in the context of the Aboriginal world and the demands of empire.

To present this history afresh, Bennelong & Phillip relates events in reverse, moving beyond the limitations of typical Western ways of writing about the past, which have long privileged the coloniser over the colonised. Bennelong’s world was hardly linear at all, and in Fullagar’s approach his and Phillip’s histories now share an equally unfamiliar framing.

"‘Rich and exciting history telling … brave, audacious … has the reader thinking deeply about the meaning of history and the role it plays in our lives … Fullagar’s position is ethically scrupulous, and highly objective in research and exposition … I recommend this as a book that carries us much further on the journey to a reconciled future – and a delicious read to boot.’" - Victoria Grieves Williams, The Australian

"‘Kate Fullagar’s important new work … brings a creative and original lens to a foundational relationship … Fullagar explores how the two men’s shared history did indeed shape Australia’s, but not simply in the way foundational narratives have tended to represent them … Bennelong & Phillip gives us a new, original lens onto this origin story … And we’re offered a much richer, nuanced account of Bennelong, who Fullagar reads in context and on Country … She also writes beautifully and clearly.’" - The Conversation

"'In this significant, entwined biography of both men, Kate Fullagar dispels the myths surrounding Bennelong and reframes the context of Phillip’s life ... The innovative structure, fluent prose and illuminating analysis make this book an absorbing read ... Not only an important book but a timely one.'" - Sydney Morning Herald

"‘an important book for our current time … A fantastic book and a challenging one.’" - Books+Publishing

"'This is an important, if not unparalleled work of Australian historiography. It is the sort of book that should receive awards.'" - The Newtown Review of Books