Reading List category: 

First Nations History

First Nations History
Maralinga Tjarutja (2020)
Behrendt, Larissa, Director; Blackfella Films
The Maralinga people survive aggressive colonisation, including dispossession to enable atomic testing, and, through their tenacious spirit and cultural strength, fight to retain their country.
First Nations History
Our Original Aggression: Aboriginal Populations of Southeastern Australia, 1788-1850 (1983)
Butlin, Noel
Proposes that we need to multiply by several times the existing estimates of pre-contact Aboriginal populations and to revise radically our understanding of why their numbers declined. We may even need to think about black population destruction as an act of genocide.
Indigenous Affairs: Government
First Nations History
Our Voices From The Heart: the Authorised Story of the Community Campaign that Changed Australia (2023)
Davis, Megan and Patricia Anderson
The story of the twelve Regional Dialogues and the Uluru National Constitutional Convention, attended by 1500 everyday First Peoples. The unanimous result was the Uluru Statement From The Heart, and its call for Voice and Makarrata.
First Nations History
Pearls and Irritations
Various authors
Regularly features articles relevant to First Nations history, the Voice and Frontier Wars
First Nations History
People of the River: Lost Worlds of Early Australia (2020)
Karskens, Grace
A landmark history of Australia's first successful settler farming area, which was on the Hawkesbury-Nepean River. Award-winning historian Grace Karskens uncovers the everyday lives of ordinary people in the early colony, both Aboriginal and British.
Indigenous Affairs: Government
First Nations History
Quarterly Essay 90: Voice of Reason: On Recognition and Renewal
Davis, Megan
Davis presents the Voice to Parliament as an Australian solution to an Australian problem. For Indigenous people, it is a practical response to the torment of powerlessness. She highlights the failure of past policies, in areas from child protection to closing the gap, and the urgent need for change. She also brings out the creative and imaginative dimensions of the Voice. Fundamental to her account is the importance of truly listening. In explaining why the Voice is needed from the ground up, she evokes a new vision of Country and community.