Dark Emu Hunting Backpack - Durable & Lightweight for Outdoor Adventures

Sensational ideas presented non-sensationally, this book is a must read for everyone who has not yet read it.I'm a white Australian woman aged 70+, born and raised in Tasmania, the most Anglo-minded of the states, whose history of harsh treatment of convict and Aboriginal people is as dark as the worst excesses of cruelty on 'the mainland' as we call it. My urban grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles were well educated, many in professional occupations. In my day, as Bruce Pascoe reminded me, our history courses were anglo- and euro-centric. The senior history teacher was so very boring that I opted out of history asap, which I now regret, but even if I had stuck with it, I now know that I would have learned very little about our indigenous people because, basically that teacher and the rest of my teachers even through tertiary level, knew very little of the ancient civilisation that prevailed before europeans come to the island continent now known as Australia. I knew plenty about the Ancient Egytians, Etruscans, Mesapotamians, Greeks, Romans and a bit about medieval Europe, European colonisation of Africa, Asia and the Pacific, but almost nothing about the Australian Aborigines - they were so little mentioned it was as if there was nothing much to tell, anyway. (Incidentally my education rarely mentioned the Americas, either, except as an object of european exploration and colonisation) Though still below voting age I remember the heated discussion about the May 1967 referendum which passed to at last count Aboriginal people in the national census. Until I went to live in an Outback mining centre as a young bride, I had never seen, let alone met, anyone Aboriginal. For a long time now (not by choice but hubby's work) I've been living outside Australia, and so though I've learned a bit about these people along the way, I've missed much of the daily talk on radio and tv that might have taught me more sooner, and introduced me to the things in this book far sooner. Like many readers, I found this book fascinating, exciting and some how hopeful for a better future as more non-Aboriginal Aussies come to understand not only enormity of what happened to the Aboriginal civilisation, (which we can't unwind back to pre-1788) I hope the facts and ideas in this book lead to wider understanding of more appropriate land management across our damaged continent, and respect for our Aborigines' history and achievements.