Leviathan: The unauthorised biography of Sydney (John Birmingham)

Sydney, with its Opera House, Harbour Bridge, climate and lifestyle is reputed to be a really nice place to live. I think it’s pretty good, myself. Birmingham writes the story of the seamy underside of the city from the arrival of the First Fleet to the Wood enquiry into police corruption. I’m not a rose-coloured glasses wearing naïf, but this story is shocking in the depth and degree of criminality and money- and power-grubbing that is part of Sydney’s history. It’s almost as though there’s a historical tradition of amoral self-advancement here. I know that human greed is pretty much universal, and there’s no reason to think that Sydney is unique in its underworld. Tammany Hall can be found pretty much anywhere.

So, right from Year Dot, the various groups that formed the elite of Sydney have been wangling things to best suit their interests – gaining money and power – and essentially not even bothering to flip the bird at the interests of the rest of the population, and the city in general. Naturally, when a bunch of people starts screwing another bunch of people, that other bunch of people starts getting a little grumpy, and there is conflict.

I dare say Birmingham has done yeoman's work in researching his book. It's long, full of detail, and in a book this size, most importantly readable. The only real quibble I have with the book is that it is inconsistent in style - it wobbles between a historical recitation of events and a more interpretive approach. Birmingham writes that his inspiration is "New Journalism" - a style in which writers strive to bring the readers into the story more than just relating a series of facts. The only problem is that the style can come off reading like a clichéd detective novel, given the subject. I suppose it's a writerly approach to a project, and Birmingham has the bona fides to go for it - he's written for a bunch of different pop cultural magazines and done some pretty hard core journalism - but... I half expected Sam Spade to wander around a Sydney street corner.

As for the content of the book, I'm astounded that with all the shenanigans and selfishness that Birmingham details over Sydney's history that it even resembles a decent place to live. I rather thought that I'd find myself getting shafted so some enterprising hood could develop a monopoly in some lucrative endeavour. However, my short experience of Sydney is that it's not as bad as Leviathan makes it out to be - perhaps things have improved over the last 200 years.

Of course, perhaps it's simply accepted that some powerful interests get to screw everyone else over. Recently, a state government portfolio was amended to afford the minister veto rights over environmental and other potential interferences to development projects worth over $50 million. That's state, not local though. I really think that the instinct to corruption is inherent in greedy little humans, and that it's not unique to a city or a time.

What this book seems to do then, is highlight the evil that lurked within the hearts of some Sydneysiders. Its focus precludes it from presenting the rosy side of the coin - all the nice things that Sydneysiders do for each other, which make for a pretty dire picture indeed.