Cathy Freeman stands at the podium, ready to light the Olympic cauldron, climaxing the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney Games. Throughout the ceremony, Aboriginal talent is on display and in the night sky, a mystic creature from the rich world of Aboriginal art rises above the stadium. Tens of millions of TV viewers worldwide witnessed Aboriginality as an important part of Australia's identity. But what of the experience of the first Australians since the Europeans arrived? Was the impression created at that Opening Ceremony a genuine reflection of black Australia's place in society? In the creation of any new society, there are winners and losers. So it was with Australia as it grew through invasion, settlement and development from a colonial outpost to an affluent industrial society. This book tells the history of Australia from the standpoint of the original Australians - those who lost most in our country's early colonial struggle for power. Surveying two centuries of Aboriginal-European encounters, it reveals what white Australia lost through unremitting colonial invasion and tells the story of Aboriginal survival through resistance and accommodation. It traces the continuing Aboriginal struggle to move from the margins of colonial society to a more central place in modern Australia.

Richard Broome's Aboriginal Australians , since its appearance in 1982 and revision in 1994 has won a wide readership as a classic text on the history of race relations in Australia. Now, fully updated to 2001, this new edition explains the land rights struggle since Mabo, te Hindmarsh Island case, debates over the 'stolen generation', 'sorry', and reconciliation, and the recent experience of Aboriginal Australia. Aboriginal Australians remains the only concise and up-to-date survey of Aboriginal history since 1788.