Before dawn on 3 December 1854, colonial troopers at Ballarat attacked a group of gold miners who had thrown up a stockade in defiance and defence. Some diggers had guns, but many were unarmed; some twenty of them were killed, along with four troopers. In the decades that followed, the truth of what happened that morning became obscured by partisans on both sides. For many years the Eureka Stockade was regarded as a shameful event and almost forgotten; more recently, it has been celebrated as a righteous stand against injustice. John Molony's Eureka vividly recreates the story of Eureka and...

Luigi Sturzo was an old man of 81 when John Molony met him in Rome in 1952. It was just prior to his nomination as senator by the President... To Molony's intense surprise he knew more about Australia and its political system than he had anticipated or indeed dared to hope. Molony put to him the question 'Do you think a Catholic political party would have a future in Australia?' His negative reply was immediate, direct and decisive. He went on to explain that in a society where the democratic process worked satisfactorily and where the people differed in their religious convictions it was...