Adelaide resident Dr Herbert Basedow, a geologist, doctor, M.P., and anthropologist. unwittingly provided the authors and administrators of the White Australia policy with a method of 'breeding out the colour', of Aborigines into the white-settler society. His studies had convinced him that Aborigines were 'the racial ancestors of Europeans, that they were black Caucasians, and therefore Aboriginal features disappeared for good after three or four generations of intermarriage with Europeans.
'The cover title of this book is rather misleading, since Zogbaum's contribution amounts to only some half of the publication. As the inside title page reveals, the book comprises three sections: 1) Zogbaum's piece about Basedow, which is a biographically informed account of his views concerning the racial classification of Aborigines; 2) a republication of Basedow's 1935 book Knights of the Boomerang: Episodes from a Life Spent among the Native Tribes of Australia; and 3) an essay by David Kaus, 'On the Photography of Herbert Basedow'. Hence, overall, the book focuses on Basedow's general contribution to Australia's understanding of Aboriginal people, not only on the vexed question of race and eugenics. However, given the topicality of this question in Australian historiography and the fact that the book is the outcome of a 'a three-year collaboration with Prof Robert Manne on the removal of Aboriginal children from their families' (p. ix), the very high profile given to Zogbaum's contribution is perhaps less surprising.' (Introduction)
'The cover title of this book is rather misleading, since Zogbaum's contribution amounts to only some half of the publication. As the inside title page reveals, the book comprises three sections: 1) Zogbaum's piece about Basedow, which is a biographically informed account of his views concerning the racial classification of Aborigines; 2) a republication of Basedow's 1935 book Knights of the Boomerang: Episodes from a Life Spent among the Native Tribes of Australia; and 3) an essay by David Kaus, 'On the Photography of Herbert Basedow'. Hence, overall, the book focuses on Basedow's general contribution to Australia's understanding of Aboriginal people, not only on the vexed question of race and eugenics. However, given the topicality of this question in Australian historiography and the fact that the book is the outcome of a 'a three-year collaboration with Prof Robert Manne on the removal of Aboriginal children from their families' (p. ix), the very high profile given to Zogbaum's contribution is perhaps less surprising.' (Introduction)
