AustLit

'There are some difficulties associated with reviewing this book. It is somewhat perplexing; it purports to have a bearing on Reynolds' own family history, a history that is, to some extent, covered in the prologue and the postscript. It also promises to show how international race theory 'shaped Australia's identity' but the connection in this work is not entirely convincing. The prologue is an introduction to Reynolds' own family history and putative descent from Aboriginal ancestry. Nowhere people is a new weapon in the unremitting History Wars that threaten to diminish the standing of historical scholarship in Australia. Reynolds has entered into an ongoing debate about the nature of the colonial conquest of Australia and is consistently under attack from the opposite end of the political spectrum. ' (Introduction)