Aboriginal Victorians: A History Since 1800 by Richard Broome

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good to near fine condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges.

Early settlers saw Victoria and its rolling grasslands as Australia Felix's happy south land a prize left for Englishmen by God. However, for its original inhabitants, this country was home and life, not to be relinquished without a fierce struggle.

Richard Broome tells the story of the impact of European ideas, guns, killer microbes and a pastoral economy on the networks of kinship, trade and cultures that various Aboriginal peoples of Victoria had developed over millennia.

From first settlement to the present, he shows how Aboriginal families have coped with ongoing disruption and displacement and how individuals and groups have challenged the system. With painful stories of personal loss as well as many successes, Broome outlines how Aboriginal Victorians survived near decimation to become a vibrant community today.

The first history of black-white interaction in Victoria to the present, Aboriginal Victorians traces the story of Aboriginal people through consultation, interviews with Aboriginal communities and families, and rich historical research to produce a compelling and even-handed epic.

It won the NSW Premier's History Awards Australian History Prize (2006) and the Victorian Community History Awards Best Print Publication Award (2007), and was short-listed for the Human Rights Awards Non-Fiction Award (2005).

The fascinating and sometimes horrifying story of Aboriginal people in Victoria since white settlement, from one of Australia's leading historians. (back cover)