Cirrus@Austlit

' I begin with this quote from Ernestine Hill because her description of the Northern Territory as 'problem child of empire' evocatively captures the paradoxical nature of the 'north' in the settler-Australian imagination - from the moment British settlement pushed further inland and north in the mid-nineteenth century, the north of the continent, the Northern Territory in particular, has simultaneously been construed as both a 'promised land' and a 'white elephant'.'  (Publication abstract)

Indigenous and Other Australians Since 1901 explores how, despite widespread settler belief at Federation that Indigenous people would ‘die out’, they in fact survived, and populations have grown rapidly, with debates on their position in Australian society now a defining political issue. There are important insights throughout the book and some fascinating historical material is presented from Rowse’s comprehensive research. In particular, Rowse develops a powerful devise of distinguishing between (loosely categorised) ‘South’ and ‘North’ Australia, insisting that the very idea of a unified ‘Australia’ remains a ‘Southern continental projection’ by a ‘settler-colonial nation state’.' (Introduction)

'Billy Griffiths’ Deep Time Dreaming has been warmly received by both an academic and a general readership, and for the most part this reception is well deserved. The book’s cover announces Griffiths’ project as that of investigating ‘a twin revolution: the reassertion of Aboriginal identity in the second half of the twentieth century, and the uncovering of the traces of ancient Australia’, and exploring ‘what it means to live in a place of great antiquity, with its complex questions of ownership and belonging’. Griffiths’ historiography of the development of Australian archaeology since the middle of the twentieth century is exceedingly well researched, well written and highly engaging.' (Introduction)

'My Brother Jack, George Johnston’s tilt at the Great Australian Novel, is distinguished for being penned from afar—not from Patrick White’s England, nor from Christina Stead’s adopted America, but from a place altogether more foreign and remote: the island of Hydra in Greece’s Saronic Gulf.'  (Introduction)