The Spectre of Truganini

1980 Boyer Lectures

by Bernard Smith

The Australian Broadcasting Commission, 1980, [First Edition], ISBN 0642975655, hardcover with photographic illustrated boards, blue cloth binding

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, sticker to spine, and residue to back cover, stickers to inside front and back covers, last few pages beginning to separate from text block, light margin line on one or two pages (see photographs)

“These lectures, unlike several important legal judgements of the 1970s which have found that Australia was acquired by peaceful occupation and settlement, are based upon the historical premise that the country was acquired by the forcible dispossession of the indigenous inhabitants of Australia from their ancestral lands, a process that might the more fittingly described as invasion and conquest.  What effects did the continuing presence of the Aboriginal people in Australia have upon the emergence of Australian culture?  In what ways have the Aboriginal people responded to the dispossession of their lands and the disruption of their traditional culture?”