
Breaking the Silence
Aboriginal Defenders and the Settler State, 1905-1939
Alison Holland(Author)
Melbourne University Press
Published on 19. November 2019
Book
Paperback/Softback
352 pages
978-0-522-87540-9 (ISBN)
Description
Breaking the Silence recovers the conflicted politics around Aboriginal affairs in the first decades of the twentieth century.
From 1905, when the report of the controversial Roth Royal Commission in Western Australia was made known to the public, to the eve of World War II, the condition and treatment of Aboriginal Australians, as well as their pasts and futures, were leading social questions which generated much discontent and discourse, and underscored the awakening of a national conscience. Yet this consternation was totally disproportionate to political will which contained it and consigned Aborigines on the eve of the second world war.
In canvassing aspects of this politics - Aboriginal defenders and their claims and the responses of governments to them - Alison Holland's research qualifies the mantra of a 'great Australian silence'. She asks why there was such investment in Aboriginal affairs in the first half of the twentieth century, what form it took, what was at stake and what the outcomes were. In answering these questions, the book provides important historical context for the consternation and debates still being had in the Australian polity over Aboriginal affairs and raises some important connections between the beginning of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
From 1905, when the report of the controversial Roth Royal Commission in Western Australia was made known to the public, to the eve of World War II, the condition and treatment of Aboriginal Australians, as well as their pasts and futures, were leading social questions which generated much discontent and discourse, and underscored the awakening of a national conscience. Yet this consternation was totally disproportionate to political will which contained it and consigned Aborigines on the eve of the second world war.
In canvassing aspects of this politics - Aboriginal defenders and their claims and the responses of governments to them - Alison Holland's research qualifies the mantra of a 'great Australian silence'. She asks why there was such investment in Aboriginal affairs in the first half of the twentieth century, what form it took, what was at stake and what the outcomes were. In answering these questions, the book provides important historical context for the consternation and debates still being had in the Australian polity over Aboriginal affairs and raises some important connections between the beginning of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Carlton
Australia
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
408 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-522-87540-9 (9780522875409)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
11/2019
Simon + Schuster LLC
€19.28
Available for download
Person
Alison Holland is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations at Macquarie University, where she specialises in Australian and Indigenous history. Her work focuses on questions of rights and humanitarianism, feminism, race, governance, policy and citizenship in Australian history broadly. Her book, Just Relations. The Story of Mary Bennett's Crusade for Aboriginal Rights (UWA Publishing 2015) was short-listed for the NSW Premier's Australian History prize in 2016.