Explores how colonial societies offered European settlers the opportunity to invent new identities. This book uncovers the stories of two port towns that were rife with gossip and dubious reputations. It argues that scandal influenced imperial policy and became a key element in the emergence of societies divided by class and race.

Part regency mystery, part imperial history, this book is a tale of adventure and deceit across two worlds, British aristocrats and Australian felons, bound together in an emerging age of opportunity and individualism, where personal worth was battling power based on birth alone.

During a major overhaul of British imperial policy following the Napoleonic Wars, an escaped convict reinvented himself as an improbable activist, renowned for his exposes of government misconduct and corruption in the Cape Colony and New South Wales. Charting scandals unleashed by the man known variously as Alexander Loe Kaye and William Edwards, Imperial Underworld offers a radical new account of the legal, constitutional and administrative transformations that unfolded during the British colonial order of the 1820s. In a narrative rife with daring jail breaks, infamous agents provocateurs,...