AustLit

'Cassandra Pybus’ biography is a beautifully written attempt to rescue Truganini from the enormous condescension of colonial posterity. Truganini’s life was defined by the tragedy that engulfed her people, but Pybus attempts to restore her agency, rethink the choices that she made and glimpse the world as she might have seen it. For Pybus this exercise is a ‘moral necessity’ because of her own position as a direct beneficiary of the displacement and destruction of Truganini and her community. As she writes, hauntingly, ‘these are people whose lives were extinguished to make way for mine’ (xvii).' (Introduction)

'Little more than seventy years after the British settled Van Diemen's Land (later Tasmania) in 1803, its indigenous population had been virtually wiped out. Yet this genocide one of the earliest of the modern era is virtually forgotten in Britain today. The Last Man is the first book specifically to explore the role of the British government and wider society in the destruction of the Aboriginal Tasmanians. Although the introduction of European diseases undoubtedly contributed to the decline of the indigenous population, Tom Lawson shows that Britain supported what was effectively the ethnic cleansing of Tasmania particularly in the period of martial law in 1828-1832. He also illustrates the ways in which the destruction of indigenous Tasmanians was reflected in British culture both at the time and since and how it came to play a key part in forging particular versions of British imperial identity. The Last Man provides the first comprehensive picture of Britain's role in the destruction of the Tasmanian Aboriginal population.' (Source: Publisher's website)

'This collection of essays considers the development of Holocaust memory in Australia since 1945. Bringing together the work of younger and more established scholars, the volume examines Holocaust memory in a variety of local and national contexts from both inside and outside of Australia's Jewish communities. The articles presented here emanate from a variety of different disciplinary perspectives, from history through literary, cultural and museum studies. This collection considers both the general development of Holocaust memory, engaging historically with particular moments when the Shoah punctuated public perceptions of the recent past, as well as its representation and memorialisation in contemporary Australia. A detailed introduction discusses the relationship between the Australian case and the general development of Holocaust memory in the Western world, asking whether we need to revise the assumptions of what have become the rather staid narratives of the journey of the Shoah into public consciousness.' (Publication summary)