History of Australia and New Zealand from 1606 to 1890 by Alexander Sutherland (with George Sutherland) is a narrative survey of the discovery, exploration, and colonisation of Australasia. Beginning with the early Dutch sightings of 1606, it carries the story through British settlement to the threshold of federation and modern colonial society.
The book recounts the voyages of explorers, the founding of the colonies, the convict era, the gold rushes, and the growth of self-government and prosperity. Written as an educational history for a colonial readership, it presents events from the perspective of nineteenth-century settler society, including its attitudes toward indigenous peoples. The work remains a useful overview of the broad outlines of Australian and New Zealand history during the centuries of European expansion across the southern seas.