Trollope said of Sydney that 'I despair of being able to convey to any reader my own idea of the beauty of Sydney Harbour. I have seen nothing equal to it in the way of land-locked sea scenery ¿ it makes a man ask himself whether it would not be worth his while to move his household goods to the eastern coast of Australia, in order that he might look at it as long as he can look at anything.'
Geoffrey Moorhouse agrees, and his intention, as with his previous books Calcutta and Imperial City: The Rise and Rise of New York, is to describe the city comprehensively and to explain in historical terms, from its colonial beginnings - how it has come to be the way it is. Moorhouse considers Sydney the most attractive of New World cities with all the virtues of American virtues but none of the vices. Australian ingredients of warmth, loyalty, resilience also play their part and, he asks, 'where else on a Friday night in June, could you choose between Joan Carden singing Leonara at the Opera House and Wally Lewis leading his Brisbane Broncos at the Football Stadium? And afterwards enjoy rock oysters and a local Chardonnay beside one of the loveliest waters in the world, twinkling with light and breathing an assurance that all things in the end shall be well?'