Author: Keith Windschuttle
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781876492199
Category : Aboriginal Australians
Languages : en
Pages : 656
Book Description
Argues against the widely held belief that in the 20th century up to one in three Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their parents in order to put an end to Aboriginality. In 1997, the Human Rights Commission made the most notorious accusation ever directed against Australia. It accused this country of committing genocide against the Aborigines by stealing their children. The purported intention of governments and welfare officials was to institutionalise and assimilate the children into white society and thus rid Australia of its Aboriginal people. In 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised to Aboriginal people for these policies. This book is based on an exhaustive examination of the archival records of child removals and of government policies and laws. It also scrutinizes the work of the historians on whom the Human Rights Commission relied. It finds the historical research that created this interpretation was shoddy and untrustworthy. Aboriginal children were never removed from their families in order to put an end to Aboriginality or, indeed, for any improper government policy or program. The small numbers of Aboriginal child removals in the twentieth century were almost all based on traditional grounds of child welfare. Most children affected had been orphaned, abandoned, destitute, neglected, malnourished or subject to various forms of domestic violence, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. The notion that this amounted to genocide came from creative interpretations of selected evidence taken out of context by politically motivated historians. There were no Stolen Generations. NB: Volume Three is published out of sequence. Volume Two and Volume Four will be published later.
The Fabrication of Aboriginal History: The stolen generations, 1881-2008
Author: Keith Windschuttle
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781876492199
Category : Aboriginal Australians
Languages : en
Pages : 656
Book Description
Argues against the widely held belief that in the 20th century up to one in three Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their parents in order to put an end to Aboriginality. In 1997, the Human Rights Commission made the most notorious accusation ever directed against Australia. It accused this country of committing genocide against the Aborigines by stealing their children. The purported intention of governments and welfare officials was to institutionalise and assimilate the children into white society and thus rid Australia of its Aboriginal people. In 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised to Aboriginal people for these policies. This book is based on an exhaustive examination of the archival records of child removals and of government policies and laws. It also scrutinizes the work of the historians on whom the Human Rights Commission relied. It finds the historical research that created this interpretation was shoddy and untrustworthy. Aboriginal children were never removed from their families in order to put an end to Aboriginality or, indeed, for any improper government policy or program. The small numbers of Aboriginal child removals in the twentieth century were almost all based on traditional grounds of child welfare. Most children affected had been orphaned, abandoned, destitute, neglected, malnourished or subject to various forms of domestic violence, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. The notion that this amounted to genocide came from creative interpretations of selected evidence taken out of context by politically motivated historians. There were no Stolen Generations. NB: Volume Three is published out of sequence. Volume Two and Volume Four will be published later.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781876492199
Category : Aboriginal Australians
Languages : en
Pages : 656
Book Description
Argues against the widely held belief that in the 20th century up to one in three Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their parents in order to put an end to Aboriginality. In 1997, the Human Rights Commission made the most notorious accusation ever directed against Australia. It accused this country of committing genocide against the Aborigines by stealing their children. The purported intention of governments and welfare officials was to institutionalise and assimilate the children into white society and thus rid Australia of its Aboriginal people. In 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised to Aboriginal people for these policies. This book is based on an exhaustive examination of the archival records of child removals and of government policies and laws. It also scrutinizes the work of the historians on whom the Human Rights Commission relied. It finds the historical research that created this interpretation was shoddy and untrustworthy. Aboriginal children were never removed from their families in order to put an end to Aboriginality or, indeed, for any improper government policy or program. The small numbers of Aboriginal child removals in the twentieth century were almost all based on traditional grounds of child welfare. Most children affected had been orphaned, abandoned, destitute, neglected, malnourished or subject to various forms of domestic violence, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. The notion that this amounted to genocide came from creative interpretations of selected evidence taken out of context by politically motivated historians. There were no Stolen Generations. NB: Volume Three is published out of sequence. Volume Two and Volume Four will be published later.
Plight and Fate of Children During and Following Genocide
Author: Samuel Totten
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351296388
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
Plight and Fate of Children During and Following Genocide examines why and how children were mistreated during genocides in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Among the cases examined are the Australian Aboriginals, the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the Mayans in Guatemala, the 1994 Rwanda genocide, and the genocide in Darfur. Two additional chapters examine the issues of sexual and gender-based violence against children and the phenomenon of child soldiers. Following an introduction by Samuel Totten, the essays include: "Australia's Aboriginal Children"; "Hell is for Children"; "Children: The Most Vulnerable Victims of the Armenian Genocide"; "Children and the Holocaust"; "The Fate of Mentally and Physically Disabled Children in Nazi Germany"; "The Plight and Fate of Children vis-a-vis the Guatemalan Genocide"; "The Plight of Children During and Following the 1994 Rwandan Genocide"; "Darfur Genocide"; "Sexual and Gender-Based Violence against Children during Genocide"; and, "Child Soldiers." Contributors include: Colin Tatz, Henry C. Theriault, Asya Darbinyan, Rubina Peroomian, Jeffrey Blutinger, Amanda Grzyb, Elisa von Joeden-Forgey, Sara Demir, Hannibal Travis, and Samuel Totten. The editor and several of the contributors have personally investigated and witnessed the aftermath of genocidal campaigns.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351296388
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
Plight and Fate of Children During and Following Genocide examines why and how children were mistreated during genocides in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Among the cases examined are the Australian Aboriginals, the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the Mayans in Guatemala, the 1994 Rwanda genocide, and the genocide in Darfur. Two additional chapters examine the issues of sexual and gender-based violence against children and the phenomenon of child soldiers. Following an introduction by Samuel Totten, the essays include: "Australia's Aboriginal Children"; "Hell is for Children"; "Children: The Most Vulnerable Victims of the Armenian Genocide"; "Children and the Holocaust"; "The Fate of Mentally and Physically Disabled Children in Nazi Germany"; "The Plight and Fate of Children vis-a-vis the Guatemalan Genocide"; "The Plight of Children During and Following the 1994 Rwandan Genocide"; "Darfur Genocide"; "Sexual and Gender-Based Violence against Children during Genocide"; and, "Child Soldiers." Contributors include: Colin Tatz, Henry C. Theriault, Asya Darbinyan, Rubina Peroomian, Jeffrey Blutinger, Amanda Grzyb, Elisa von Joeden-Forgey, Sara Demir, Hannibal Travis, and Samuel Totten. The editor and several of the contributors have personally investigated and witnessed the aftermath of genocidal campaigns.
Historical Dictionary of Australian Aborigines
Author: Mitchell Rolls
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538134357
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
The Aboriginal Australians first arrived on the continent at least 60,000 years ago, occupying and adapting to a range of environmental conditions—from tropical estuarine habitats, densely forested regions, open plains, and arid desert country to cold, mountainous, and often wet and snowy high country. Cultures adapted according to the different conditions and adapted again to environmental changes brought about by rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age. European colonization of the island continent in 1788 not only introduced diseases to which Aborigines had no immunity but also began an enduring and at times violent conflict over land and resources. Reconciliation between Aborigines and the settler population remains unresolved. This second edition of the Historical Dictionary of Australian Aborigines contains a chronology, an introduction, an extensive bibliography, and more than 300 cross-referenced entries on the politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture of the Aborigines. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the indigenous people of Australia.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538134357
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
The Aboriginal Australians first arrived on the continent at least 60,000 years ago, occupying and adapting to a range of environmental conditions—from tropical estuarine habitats, densely forested regions, open plains, and arid desert country to cold, mountainous, and often wet and snowy high country. Cultures adapted according to the different conditions and adapted again to environmental changes brought about by rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age. European colonization of the island continent in 1788 not only introduced diseases to which Aborigines had no immunity but also began an enduring and at times violent conflict over land and resources. Reconciliation between Aborigines and the settler population remains unresolved. This second edition of the Historical Dictionary of Australian Aborigines contains a chronology, an introduction, an extensive bibliography, and more than 300 cross-referenced entries on the politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture of the Aborigines. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the indigenous people of Australia.
Liberating Histories
Author: Claire Norton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351005847
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
Liberating Histories makes an original, scholarly contribution to contemporary debates surrounding the cultural and political relevance of historical practices. Arguing against the idea that specifically historical readings of the past are necessary or are compelled by the force of past events themselves, this book instead focuses on other forms of past-talk and how they function in politically empowering ways against social injustices. Challenging the authority and constraints of academic history over the past, this book explores various forms of past-talk, including art, films, activism, memory, nostalgia and archives. Across seven clear chapters, Claire Norton and Mark Donnelly show how activists and campaigners have used forms of past-talk to unsettle ‘common sense’ thinking about political and social problems, how journalists, artists, curators, filmmakers and performers have referenced the past in their practices of advocacy, and how grassroots archivists help to circulate materials that challenge the power of authorised institutional archives to determine what gets to count as a demonstrable feature of the past and whose voices are part of the ‘historical record’. Written in a lucid, accessible manner, and combining insightful critical analysis and philosophical argument with clear consideration of how different forms of past-talk influence the narration of pasts in a variety of socio-political contexts, Liberating Histories is essential reading for students and scholars with an interest in historiography and the ethical and political dimensions of the historical discipline.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351005847
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
Liberating Histories makes an original, scholarly contribution to contemporary debates surrounding the cultural and political relevance of historical practices. Arguing against the idea that specifically historical readings of the past are necessary or are compelled by the force of past events themselves, this book instead focuses on other forms of past-talk and how they function in politically empowering ways against social injustices. Challenging the authority and constraints of academic history over the past, this book explores various forms of past-talk, including art, films, activism, memory, nostalgia and archives. Across seven clear chapters, Claire Norton and Mark Donnelly show how activists and campaigners have used forms of past-talk to unsettle ‘common sense’ thinking about political and social problems, how journalists, artists, curators, filmmakers and performers have referenced the past in their practices of advocacy, and how grassroots archivists help to circulate materials that challenge the power of authorised institutional archives to determine what gets to count as a demonstrable feature of the past and whose voices are part of the ‘historical record’. Written in a lucid, accessible manner, and combining insightful critical analysis and philosophical argument with clear consideration of how different forms of past-talk influence the narration of pasts in a variety of socio-political contexts, Liberating Histories is essential reading for students and scholars with an interest in historiography and the ethical and political dimensions of the historical discipline.
'Every Mother's Son is Guilty'
Author: Chris Owen
Publisher: Apollo Books
ISBN: 9781742586687
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 656
Book Description
"This is a marvellous contribution by Chris Owen to the understanding of the role the Western Australian police force played in the colonial expansion into the Kimberley district of Western Australia."--Senator Patrick Dodson, Yawuru Elder ***Chris Owen provides a compelling account of policing in the Kimberley district from 1882, when police were established in the district, until 1905 when Dr. Walter Roth's controversial Royal Commission into the treatment of Aboriginal people was released. Owen's achievement is to take elements of all the pre-existing historiography and test them against a rigorous archival investigation. In doing so, a fuller understanding of the complex social, economic, and political changes occurring in Western Australia during the period are exposed. The policing of Aboriginal people changed from one of protection under law to one of punishment and control. The subsequent violence of colonial settlement and the associated policing and criminal justice system that developed, often of questionable legality, was what Royal Commissioner Roth termed a 'brutal and outrageous state of affairs.' Every Mother's Son is Guilty is a significant contribution to Australian and colonial criminal justice history. Subject: History, Aboriginal Studies, Criminal Justice, policing]
Publisher: Apollo Books
ISBN: 9781742586687
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 656
Book Description
"This is a marvellous contribution by Chris Owen to the understanding of the role the Western Australian police force played in the colonial expansion into the Kimberley district of Western Australia."--Senator Patrick Dodson, Yawuru Elder ***Chris Owen provides a compelling account of policing in the Kimberley district from 1882, when police were established in the district, until 1905 when Dr. Walter Roth's controversial Royal Commission into the treatment of Aboriginal people was released. Owen's achievement is to take elements of all the pre-existing historiography and test them against a rigorous archival investigation. In doing so, a fuller understanding of the complex social, economic, and political changes occurring in Western Australia during the period are exposed. The policing of Aboriginal people changed from one of protection under law to one of punishment and control. The subsequent violence of colonial settlement and the associated policing and criminal justice system that developed, often of questionable legality, was what Royal Commissioner Roth termed a 'brutal and outrageous state of affairs.' Every Mother's Son is Guilty is a significant contribution to Australian and colonial criminal justice history. Subject: History, Aboriginal Studies, Criminal Justice, policing]
Aboriginal Rights Claims and the Making and Remaking of History
Author: Arthur J. Ray
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773599118
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
Forums such as commissions, courtroom trials, and tribunals that have been established through the second half of the twentieth century to address aboriginal land claims have consequently created a particular way of presenting aboriginal, colonial, and national histories. The history that emerges from these land-claims processes is often criticized for being “presentist” – inaccurately interpreting historical actions and actors through the lens of present-day values, practices, and concerns. In Aboriginal Rights Claims and the Making and Remaking of History, Arthur Ray examines how claims-oriented research is often fitted to the existing frames of indigenous rights law and claims legislation and, as a result, has influenced the development of these laws and legislation. Through a comparative study encompassing the United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Ray also explores the ways in which various procedures and settings for claims adjudication have influenced and changed the use of historical evidence, made space for indigenous voices, stimulated scholarly debates about the cultural and historical experiences of indigenous peoples at the time of initial European contact and afterward, and have provoked reactions from politicians and scholars. While giving serious consideration to the flaws and strengths of presentist histories, Aboriginal Rights Claims and the Making and Remaking of History provides communities with essential information on how history is used and how methods are adapted and changed.
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773599118
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
Forums such as commissions, courtroom trials, and tribunals that have been established through the second half of the twentieth century to address aboriginal land claims have consequently created a particular way of presenting aboriginal, colonial, and national histories. The history that emerges from these land-claims processes is often criticized for being “presentist” – inaccurately interpreting historical actions and actors through the lens of present-day values, practices, and concerns. In Aboriginal Rights Claims and the Making and Remaking of History, Arthur Ray examines how claims-oriented research is often fitted to the existing frames of indigenous rights law and claims legislation and, as a result, has influenced the development of these laws and legislation. Through a comparative study encompassing the United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Ray also explores the ways in which various procedures and settings for claims adjudication have influenced and changed the use of historical evidence, made space for indigenous voices, stimulated scholarly debates about the cultural and historical experiences of indigenous peoples at the time of initial European contact and afterward, and have provoked reactions from politicians and scholars. While giving serious consideration to the flaws and strengths of presentist histories, Aboriginal Rights Claims and the Making and Remaking of History provides communities with essential information on how history is used and how methods are adapted and changed.
Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence
Author: Doris Pilkington
Publisher: Univ. of Queensland Press
ISBN: 0702252050
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 155
Book Description
This extraordinary story of courage and faith is based on the actual experiences of three girls who fled from the repressive life of Moore River Native Settlement, following along the rabbit-proof fence back to their homelands. Assimilationist policy dictated that these girls be taken from their kin and their homes in order to be made white. Settlement life was unbearable with its chains and padlocks, barred windows, hard cold beds, and horrible food. Solitary confinement was doled out as regular punishment. The girls were not even allowed to speak their language. Of all the journeys made since white people set foot on Australian soil, the journey made by these girls born of Aboriginal mothers and white fathers speaks something to everyone.
Publisher: Univ. of Queensland Press
ISBN: 0702252050
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 155
Book Description
This extraordinary story of courage and faith is based on the actual experiences of three girls who fled from the repressive life of Moore River Native Settlement, following along the rabbit-proof fence back to their homelands. Assimilationist policy dictated that these girls be taken from their kin and their homes in order to be made white. Settlement life was unbearable with its chains and padlocks, barred windows, hard cold beds, and horrible food. Solitary confinement was doled out as regular punishment. The girls were not even allowed to speak their language. Of all the journeys made since white people set foot on Australian soil, the journey made by these girls born of Aboriginal mothers and white fathers speaks something to everyone.
Indigenist Critical Realism
Author: Gracelyn Smallwood
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317609492
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
Indigenist Critical Realism: Human Rights and First Australians’ Wellbeing consists of a defence of what is popularly known as the Human Rights Agenda in Indigenous Affairs in Australia. It begins with a consideration of the non-well-being of Indigenous Australians, then unfolding a personal narrative of the author Dr Gracelyn Smallwood's family. This narrative is designed not only to position the author in the book but also in its typicality to represent what has happened to so many Indigenous families in Australia. The book then moves to a critical engagement with dominant intellectual positions such as those advanced by commentators such as Noel Pearson, Peter Sutton, Gary Johns and Keith Windschuttle. The author argues that intellectuals such as these have to a great extent colonised what passes for common sense in mainstream Australia. This common sense straddles the domains of history, health and education and Dr Smallwood has chosen to follow her adversaries into all of these areas. This critique is anchored by a number of key philosophical concepts developed by the Critical Realist philosopher Roy Bhaskar. The book advances and analyses a number of case studies - some well-known, even notorious such as the Hindmarsh Island Affair (South Australia) and the Northern Territory Intervention; others like that of the author's late nephew Lyji Vaggs (Qld) and Aboriginal Elder May Dunne (Qld) much less so. Representing one of the first attempts to engage at a critical and intellectual level in this debate by an Indigenous activist, this book is essential reading for students and scholars interested in Critical Realism and colonialism.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317609492
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
Indigenist Critical Realism: Human Rights and First Australians’ Wellbeing consists of a defence of what is popularly known as the Human Rights Agenda in Indigenous Affairs in Australia. It begins with a consideration of the non-well-being of Indigenous Australians, then unfolding a personal narrative of the author Dr Gracelyn Smallwood's family. This narrative is designed not only to position the author in the book but also in its typicality to represent what has happened to so many Indigenous families in Australia. The book then moves to a critical engagement with dominant intellectual positions such as those advanced by commentators such as Noel Pearson, Peter Sutton, Gary Johns and Keith Windschuttle. The author argues that intellectuals such as these have to a great extent colonised what passes for common sense in mainstream Australia. This common sense straddles the domains of history, health and education and Dr Smallwood has chosen to follow her adversaries into all of these areas. This critique is anchored by a number of key philosophical concepts developed by the Critical Realist philosopher Roy Bhaskar. The book advances and analyses a number of case studies - some well-known, even notorious such as the Hindmarsh Island Affair (South Australia) and the Northern Territory Intervention; others like that of the author's late nephew Lyji Vaggs (Qld) and Aboriginal Elder May Dunne (Qld) much less so. Representing one of the first attempts to engage at a critical and intellectual level in this debate by an Indigenous activist, this book is essential reading for students and scholars interested in Critical Realism and colonialism.
State Apologies to Indigenous Peoples
Author: Francesca Dominello
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040048501
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 175
Book Description
This book considers the ethics and politics of state apologies made to Indigenous peoples. The prevalent tendency to treat an apology as a speech act has maintained the focus on the state leader making the apology and not on the victims’ claims. This book demonstrates the inherent shortcomings of this approach through an examination of apologies delivered to Indigenous peoples in Australia and Canada. Contrasting the texts of these apologies with Indigenous peoples' responses, the book develops an understanding of apology as a relational process. This involves engaging indigenous peoples in dialogue, the aim of which would be to address past injuries by fulfilling the apology's transformative promise of 'never again' to indigenous peoples' satisfaction. The book concludes by examining more recent developments in Australia and Canada that highlight the contunuing need for government accountability to fulfil this promise and ensure indigenous people's rights and interests are upheld. This book will be of considerable interest to scholars and students in the fields of law and politics , Indigenous studies; forgiveness studies; transitional justice and reconciliation; settler colonialism and decolonisation.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040048501
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 175
Book Description
This book considers the ethics and politics of state apologies made to Indigenous peoples. The prevalent tendency to treat an apology as a speech act has maintained the focus on the state leader making the apology and not on the victims’ claims. This book demonstrates the inherent shortcomings of this approach through an examination of apologies delivered to Indigenous peoples in Australia and Canada. Contrasting the texts of these apologies with Indigenous peoples' responses, the book develops an understanding of apology as a relational process. This involves engaging indigenous peoples in dialogue, the aim of which would be to address past injuries by fulfilling the apology's transformative promise of 'never again' to indigenous peoples' satisfaction. The book concludes by examining more recent developments in Australia and Canada that highlight the contunuing need for government accountability to fulfil this promise and ensure indigenous people's rights and interests are upheld. This book will be of considerable interest to scholars and students in the fields of law and politics , Indigenous studies; forgiveness studies; transitional justice and reconciliation; settler colonialism and decolonisation.
Telling Tennant's Story
Author: Dean Ashenden
Publisher: Black Inc.
ISBN: 1743822251
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 410
Book Description
Tennant Creek and Australia’s Unresolved Past Winner of the 2022 Australian Political Book of the Year Award 'A drily elegant, bracing work from a pained and open heart' —Helen Garner 'Refreshing and original. A unique window on Australia's past and its barbed resonance today … Essential reading for anyone interested in the challenge of truth-telling.' —Mark McKenna 'A graceful, unostentatiously scholarly, wise (and highly readable) book on a subject of overwhelming and enduring significance for all Australians.' —Robert Manne The tale of a town, and a nation Returning after fifty years to the frontier town where he lived as a boy, Dean Ashenden finds Tennant Creek transformed, but its silence about the past still mostly intact. Provoked by a half-hidden account, Ashenden sets out to understand how the story of 'relations between two racial groups within a single field of life' has been told and not told, in this town and across the nation. In a riveting combination of memoir, reportage and political and intellectual history, Ashenden traces the strange career of the great Australian silence – from its beginnings in the first encounters of black and white, through the work of the early anthropologists, the historians and the courts in landmark cases about land rights and the Stolen Generations, to still-continuing controversy. In a moving finale, Ashenden goes back to Tennant Creek once more to meet for the first time some of his Aboriginal contemporaries, and to ask how the truths of Australia's story can best be told.
Publisher: Black Inc.
ISBN: 1743822251
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 410
Book Description
Tennant Creek and Australia’s Unresolved Past Winner of the 2022 Australian Political Book of the Year Award 'A drily elegant, bracing work from a pained and open heart' —Helen Garner 'Refreshing and original. A unique window on Australia's past and its barbed resonance today … Essential reading for anyone interested in the challenge of truth-telling.' —Mark McKenna 'A graceful, unostentatiously scholarly, wise (and highly readable) book on a subject of overwhelming and enduring significance for all Australians.' —Robert Manne The tale of a town, and a nation Returning after fifty years to the frontier town where he lived as a boy, Dean Ashenden finds Tennant Creek transformed, but its silence about the past still mostly intact. Provoked by a half-hidden account, Ashenden sets out to understand how the story of 'relations between two racial groups within a single field of life' has been told and not told, in this town and across the nation. In a riveting combination of memoir, reportage and political and intellectual history, Ashenden traces the strange career of the great Australian silence – from its beginnings in the first encounters of black and white, through the work of the early anthropologists, the historians and the courts in landmark cases about land rights and the Stolen Generations, to still-continuing controversy. In a moving finale, Ashenden goes back to Tennant Creek once more to meet for the first time some of his Aboriginal contemporaries, and to ask how the truths of Australia's story can best be told.