Dark Emu
Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture
By Bruce Pascoe
Harry Hartog's review
This book should be compulsory reading for every single human on earth, not just Australians. Pascoe debunks one after the other the lies we have been fed by a colonialist society. Using examples from the first fleet, settlers and explorers journals, Pascoe shows how we wiped out and entire culture and economy to justify our presence here. Regardless of your stance in the world, you cannot and should not form any argument until you have read this book. It changed my life and what Australia, and being an Australian means to me, and it will for you too. - Lauren, Subscriptions
Description
'Dark Emu injects a profound authenticity into the conversation about how we Australians understand our continent...[It is] essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what Australia once was, or what it might yet be if we heed the lessons of long and sophisticated human occupation.' - Judges for 2016 NSW Premier's Literary Awards
Dark Emu puts forward an argument for a reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians. The evidence insists that Aboriginal people right across the continent were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating, and storing - behaviours inconsistent with the hunter-gatherer tag. Gerritsen and Gammage in their latest books support this premise but Pascoe takes this further and challenges the hunter-gatherer tag as a convenient lie. Almost all the evidence in Dark Emu comes from the records and diaries of the Australian explorers, impeccable sources.
Bruce's comments on his book compared to Gammage's: 'My book is about food production, housing construction and clothing, whereas Gammage was interested in the appearance of the country at contact. [Gammage] doesn't contest hunter gatherer labels either, whereas that is at the centre of my argument.'
- ISBN:
- 9781921248016
- Format:
- Paperback
- Pages:
- 278
- Published:
- Publisher:
- Magabala Books
- Imprint:
- Magabala Books
- Weight:
- 300 g