One of Australia’s finest essayists, the first to cut through ‘the great Australian silence’ to convey the richness and uniqueness of Aboriginal culture to settler Australians‘The most literate and persuasive of all contributions on Australia’s Indigenous people’ —Marcia LangtonW.E.H. Stanner's words changed Australia. In his 1968 Boyer Lectures he exposed a ‘cult of forgetfulness practised on a national scale’, regarding the fate of First Nations people, f...

Anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner is perhaps most well known for coining the phrase the 'great Australian silence', addressing the culture of denial or 'conscious forgetting' regarding the history Australia since European arrival.This reprint of On Aboriginal Religion pays tribute to the ongoing relevance of Stanner?s work. His research into Aboriginal religion was first published as a series of articles in the journal Oceania between 1959 and 1963. In 1963 the articles were p...

When The Souls of Black Folk was first published in 1903, it had a galvanizing effect on the conversation about race in America—and it remains both a touchstone in the literature of African America and a beacon in the fight for civil rights. Believing that one can know the “soul” of a race by knowing the souls of individuals, W. E. B. Du Bois combines history and stirring autobiography to reflect on the magnitude of American racism and to chart a path forward against oppression, and introd...

First published in 1845, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave” is an 1845 autobiographical treatise on abolition by Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), an American escaped slave who became a prominent activist, author, and public speaker. A leading figure in the abolitionist movement, he fought for the end of slavery until the 1862 Emancipation Proclamation and continued to vehemently fight for human rights until his death. One of the most well-known slave narrative...

Frederick Douglass was born in 1817 and lived for ten years as a slave upon a Maryland plantation. Then he was bought by a Baltimore shipbuilder. He learned to read, and, being attracted by "The Lady of the Lake," when he escaped in 1838 and went disguised as a sailor to New Bedford, Mass., he adopted the name Douglas (spelling it with two s's, however). He lived for several years in New Bedford, being assisted by Garrison in his efforts for an education. In 1841, at an anti-slavery conven...

It is one of Australia's most iconic images. On 17 April 1993, the Indigenous AFL footballer Nicky Winmar stood up against racial abuse and made history. Facing the Collingwood crowd that had taunted him all day the St Kilda player pulled up his shirt, pointed to his chest and declared: 'I'm black and I'm proud to be black'.Published the next day, the photos of Winmar's gesture sparked an intense debate that forced the AFL, the fans and the nation to confront their prejudices head-...

This is not a book of documents, snippets or worthy speeches. Instead it presents the original essays and the moments of insight that told us what Australia is and could be.These are the essential statements – from historians, reporters, novelists, mavericks and visionaries – that take us from Federation to the present-day, and tell a story of national self-discovery.There is the Frenchman who saw that Australia was a 'workingman's paradise', and the histor...

Policing is a controversial subject, generating considerable debate. One issue of concern has been “racial profiling” by police, that is, the alleged practice of targeting individuals and groups on the basis of “race.” Racialized Policing argues that the debate has been limited by its individualized frame. As well, the concen- tration on police relations with people of colour means that Aboriginal people’s encounters with police receive far less scrutiny. Going beyond the interper...

The current Status criteria of theIndian Act contains descent-based rules akin to blood quantum that are particularly discriminatory against women and their descendants, which author Pamela Palmater argues will lead to the extinguishment of First Nations as legal and constitutional entities. Beginning with an historic overview of legislative enactments defining Indian status and their impact on First Nations, the author examines contemporary court rulings dealing with Indigenous identity, ...

Sense and Nonsense in Australian History represents a lifetime's original reflection by Australia's most innovative and penetrating historian. Included here are classic essays on the pioneer legend, Australian egalitarianism and colonial culture. There are celebrated critiques of The Tyranny of Distance, multiculturalism and nationalistic history, as well as a substantial essay on Aboriginal dispossession and the history wars.In Sense and Nonsense in Australia...

In this national bestseller Robert Manne attacks the right-wing campaign against the Bringing them home report that revealed how thousands of Aboriginal children had been taken from their parents.What was the role of Paddy McGuinness as editor of Quadrant? How reliable was the evidence that led newspaper columnists from Piers Akerman in the Sydney Daily Telegraph to Andrew Bolt in the Melbourne Herald Sun to deny the gravity of the injustice done?...

"We can no longer pretend we don't know about residential schools, murdered and missing Aboriginal women and 'Indian hospitals.' The only outstanding question is how we respond."—Tom Sandborn, Vancouver SunA shocking exposé of the dark history and legacy of segregated Indigenous health care in Canada.After the publication of his critically acclaimed 2011 book Drink the Bitter Root: A Writer's Search for Justice and Hea...