Bain Attwood

William Cooper: An Aboriginal Life Story details William Cooper's passionate struggle against the dispossession of Aboriginal people and the denial of their rights, as well as his heroic fight for them to become citizens in their own country. His efforts have been widely commemorated and celebrated. By carefully reconstructing the historical losses his Yorta Yorta people suffered and endured, the...

On 27 May 1967, a remarkable event occurred. An overwhelming majority of electors voted in a national referendum to amend clauses of the Australian Constitution concerning Aboriginal people. Today, it is commonly regarded as a turning point in the history of relations between Indigenous and white Australians: a historic moment when citizenship rights, including the vote, were granted, and the...

Most non-Indigenous Australians know of Charles Perkins. Many are familiar with a few other Aboriginal leaders. Yet few have heard of William Cooper, one of the most important Aboriginal leaders in Australia's history. Thinking Black tells the story of Cooper and the Australian Aborigines' League, and their campaign for Aboriginal people's rights. Through petitions to government, letters to other campaigners...

Beyond the generalisations of national and colonial history, what can we know about how Aboriginal nations interacted with the British settlers who invaded their country, the men appointed by the imperial and colonial governments to protect them, and each other? In The Good Country Bain Attwood makes a major contribution to our knowledge of this period by providing a superbly...