Young Dark Emu: A Truer History adapts Bruce Pascoe's landmark research for younger readers, drawing on first-person European accounts to challenge the hunter-gatherer narrative of pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians and reveal a continent shaped by farming, fisheries, and permanent settlements.
About This Book
Before European colonisation, Aboriginal Australians cultivated land, built permanent homes, managed productive fisheries, and developed a sophisticated understanding of natural resources that sustained thriving villages across the continent. That is the argument Bruce Pascoe constructs in Young Dark Emu: A Truer History — and he builds it using the words of early European explorers, colonists, and farmers themselves. Adapted from the award-winning Dark Emu, this version brings Pascoe's revisionist history of pre-colonial Australia to younger readers, asking them to weigh the evidence and reconsider the received version of this country's past. Essential reading for anyone invested in Indigenous Australian history and truthful historical education.
Key Features
- 64 pages of narrative history drawing on primary European accounts and first-person colonial records
- Written by Bruce Pascoe, author of the award-winning Dark Emu
- Published by Magabala Books
What You'll Discover
- How early European explorers and colonists documented Aboriginal agricultural practices that contradict the hunter-gatherer classification
- Evidence of cultivated farming areas, permanent dwellings, and managed fisheries in pre-colonial Australia
- How Aboriginal communities developed environmental knowledge that supported large, settled populations across the continent
- Why the historical record has long obscured these achievements, and what a truer account of Australia's pre-colonial past looks like
About the Author
Bruce Pascoe is an Australian author of Bunurong, Yuin, and Tasmanian heritage whose work centres on Indigenous Australian history and culture. His book Dark Emu won multiple literary awards and sparked widespread public debate about the nature of pre-colonial Aboriginal society. Young Dark Emu: A Truer History extends that research to younger audiences.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 64
- Dimensions: [Details available upon request]
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9781925360844
- Publisher: Magabala Books
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Young readers, educators teaching Australian history, parents seeking truthful accounts of Indigenous history, and anyone who engaged with the original Dark Emu and wants to share its arguments with the next generation.