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Henry Reynolds Henry Reynolds i(A34772 works by)
Born: Established: 1938 Hobart, Southeast Tasmania, Tasmania, ;
Gender: Male
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BiographyHistory

Born in 1938 in Hobart, son of a journalist and historian, Henry Reynolds graduated from the University of Tasmania with an MA. He taught in secondary schools in Australia and England before taking up an appointment to set up the program in Australian history at James Cook University of North Queensland in the early seventies. Reynolds's ground-breaking work, The Other Side of the Frontier (1982) which won the Ernest Scott Prize, examines Aboriginal responses to British colonisation, including the issues of guerilla warfare and the exploitation of Aboriginal women.

Reynolds's primary research interest has been the history of Aboriginal-white relations in Australia and his publications include Frontier (1987), Dispossession (1989), The Law of the Land (1987), With the White People (1990), Fate of a Free People (1995), Aboriginal Sovereignty (1996) and Why Weren't We Told? (2000). Reynolds is notable for arguing for justice for Aboriginal land rights; his work with Eddie Mabo on an oral history project in the 1970s contributed to the High Court's recognition of land rights.

Henry Reynolds lives and writes in Tasmania.

Most Referenced Works

Notes

  • Other works include:

    Unnecessary Wars (2016).

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Tongerlongeter : First Nations Leader and Tasmanian War Hero Sydney : NewSouth Publishing , 2021 22572642 2021 single work biography

'An epic story of resistance, suffering and survival. Tongerlongeter resurrects a once-in-a-generation leader all Australians can admire.

'Australia has no war hero more impressive than Tongerlongeter. Leader of the Oyster Bay nation of south-east Tasmania in the 1820s and ’30s, he and his allies led the most effective frontier resistance ever mounted on Australian soil. They killed or wounded some 354 – or 4 per cent – of the invaders of their country. Tongerlongeter’s brilliant campaign inspired terror throughout the colony, forcing Governor George Arthur to launch a massive military operation in 1830 – the infamous Black Line. Tongerlongeter escaped but the cumulative losses had taken their toll. On New Year’s Eve 1831, having lost his arm, his country, and all but 25 of his people, the chief agreed to an armistice. In exile on Flinders Island, this revered warrior united most of the remnant tribes and became the settlement’s ‘King’ – a beacon of hope in a hopeless situation.' (Publication summary)

2024 shortlisted Dick and Joan Green Family Award for Tasmanian History
y separately published work icon Truth-Telling : History, Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement Sydney : NewSouth Publishing , 2021 21205659 2021 multi chapter work criticism

'If we are to take seriously the need for telling the truth about our history, we must start at first principles.

'What if the sovereignty of the First Nations was recognised by European international law in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? What if the audacious British annexation of a whole continent was not seen as acceptable at the time and the colonial office in Britain understood that 'peaceful settlement' was a fiction? If the 1901 parliament did not have control of the whole continent, particularly the North, by what right could the new nation claim it?

'The historical record shows that the argument of the Uluru Statement from the Heart is stronger than many people imagine and the centuries-long legal position about British claims to the land far less imposing than it appears.

'In Truth-Telling, influential historian Henry Reynolds pulls the rug from legal and historical assumptions, with his usual sharp eye and rigour, in a book that's about the present as much as the past. His work shows exactly why our national war memorial must acknowledge the frontier wars, why we must change the date of our national day, and why treaties are important. Most of all, it makes urgently clear that the Uluru Statement is no rhetorical flourish but carries the weight of history and law and gives us a map for the future.' (Publication summary)

2022 longlisted Dick and Joan Green Family Award for Tasmanian History
2022 shortlisted Tasmania Book Prizes Tasmanian Literary Awards Premier's Prize for Non-fiction
2022 longlisted Colin Roderick Award
2022 shortlisted Ernest Scott Prize
2021 shortlisted Educational Publishing Awards Australia Tertiary Education Scholarly Non-Fiction Book of the Year
y separately published work icon Forgotten War Sydney : NewSouth Publishing , 2013 6168912 2013 single work non-fiction

'Australia is dotted with memorials to soldiers who fought in wars overseas. Why are there no official memorials or commemorations of the wars that were fought on Australian soil between Aborigines and white colonists? Why is it more controversial to talk about the frontier war now than it was one hundred years ago?'

'Forgotten War continues the story told in Henry Reynolds seminal book The Other Side of the Frontier, which argued that the settlement of Australia had a high level of violence and conflict that we chose to ignore.'

'That book prompted a flowering of research and fieldwork that Reynolds draws on here to give a thorough and systematic account of what caused the frontier wars between white colonists and Aborigines, how many people died and whether the colonists themselves saw frontier conflict as a form of warfare.' (Source: Creative Spirits website)

2015 shortlisted Tasmania Book Prizes Tasmanian Literary Awards Tasmania Book Prize
2014 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards History Book Award
2014 winner Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Award for Non-Fiction
Last amended 16 Mar 2023 15:33:32
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