Dark Emu marshals evidence drawn directly from the diaries of early European explorers to challenge the enduring colonial myth of the Aboriginal hunter-gatherer, reframing pre-contact Australia as a landscape shaped by sophisticated food production and land management.
About This Book
The hunter-gatherer classification has long served as a foundation for narratives that justified the dispossession of Aboriginal Australians. Bruce Pascoe dismantles that foundation by returning to primary sources — the journals of the explorers themselves — to demonstrate that what they witnessed and recorded was consistently more complex than subsequent retellings acknowledged. Systems of agriculture, aquaculture, and landscape management are documented throughout these accounts, yet were stripped from the historical record. Dark Emu is essential reading for anyone seeking an honest reckoning with Australia's pre-colonial past and the ideological work that colonial historiography continues to perform.
Key Features
- 278 pages drawing on primary source material including early explorer diaries and journals
- Written by Bruce Pascoe
- Published by Magabala Books
What You'll Discover
- How the journals of early European explorers document Aboriginal food production and land management practices that contradict the hunter-gatherer classification
- The mechanisms by which colonial mythology systematically understated the complexity of pre-contact Aboriginal societies
- The relationship between historical misrepresentation and the legal and moral justifications for dispossession
- A framework for re-reading Australian history through its primary sources rather than its inherited narratives
About the Author
Bruce Pascoe is an accomplished Australian author whose work engages with Aboriginal history, culture, and land. In Dark Emu, he brings together extensive research across historical primary sources to build a sustained argument about the misrepresentation of pre-colonial Aboriginal civilisation.
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 278
- Dimensions: [Details available upon request]
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9781921248016
- Publisher: Magabala Books
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Readers in history, urban planning, landscape architecture, and Indigenous studies seeking a rigorous reappraisal of pre-colonial Australian land management and its contemporary relevance.