Margaret Cameron-Ash has written extensively on the role of pre-settlement Australia in European politics during the Age of Revolutions. After working as a lawyer in Sydney and London and as a visiting fellow at the University of New South Wales, she widened her research to include cartography and history. Her books include Lying for the Admiralty: Captain Cook’s Endeavour Voyage, and most recently, Beating France to Botany Bay: The Race to Found Australia — outlining that the French had a jump start in the race for a Pacific empire, but English officials then launched their own pursuit around the globe (the contestants finally met in Botany Bay, with the French just five days too late). In her earlier legal career, she wrote Supreme and District Courts Practice.