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This book presents original and provocative views on the complex and dynamic social lives of Indigenous Australians from an historical perspective. Building on the foundational work of Harry Lourandos, the book critically examines and challenges traditional approaches which have presented Indigenous Australian pasts as static and tethered to ecological rationalism.The book reveals the ancient past of Aboriginal Australians to be one of long-term changes in social relationships and traditions, as well as the active management and manipulation of the environment. It encourages a deeper appreciation of the ways Aboriginal peoples have engaged with, and constructed their worlds. It solicits a deeper understanding of the contemporary political and social context of research and the insidious impacts of colonialist philosophies. In short, it concerns people: both past and present. Ultimately, The Social Archaeology of Australian Indigenous Societies looks beyond the stereotype of Aboriginal peoples as hunter-gatherers'' and charts new and challenging agendas for Australian Aboriginal archaeology.

Arthur Malcolm, a stocky Aboriginal man in a maroon Fairmont, was in tears as the cavalcade drove towards Yarrabah Aboriginal community. It was October 1985 and the Yarrabah people were cheering him as he returned to the community as their new bishop, the first Aboriginal bishop in the Anglican Church. In "White Christ, Black Cross" Noel Loos interweaves his own more than twenty years'' personal experience with Yarrabah and other Queensland Aboriginal communities along with the voices of Aboriginal people, missionaries, and those who sat in the pews and on subcommittees and Boards in the cities, removed from the reality of the missions. Loos embeds the historical influences and impacts of the missions in shaping Christianity in Aboriginal Australia in the reality of frontier violence, government control, segregation and neglect. Aboriginal people on the missions responded to white Christianity as part of their enforced cultural change. As control diminished, Aboriginal people responded more overtly and autonomously: some regarding Christianity as irrelevant, others adopting it in culturally satisfying ways. Through the Australian Board of Missions, the Church of England sought to convert Aboriginal people into a Europeanised compliant sub-caste, with the separation of children from their families the first step. However, increasingly the Church found itself embroiled in emerging broader social issues and changing government policies. Loos believes its support of Ernest Gribble''s exposure of the 1926 Forrest River massacres indirectly set off the current ''history wars''. Nowadays, Yarrabah, one of the old mission communities, has become a centre of Christian revival, expressing an Aboriginal understanding and spirituality.

This is the first exploration of modern Australian social anthropology which examines the forces that helped shaped its formation. In his new work, Geoffrey Gray reveals the struggle to establish and consolidate anthropology in Australia as an academic discipline. He argues that to do so, anthropologists had to demonstrate that their discipline was the predominant interpreter of Indigenous life. Thus they were able, and called on, to assist government in the control, development and advancement of Indigenous peoples. Gray aims to help us understand the present organisational structures, and assist in the formulation of anthropology''s future role in Australia; to provide a wider political and social context for Australian social anthropology, and to consider the importance of anthropology as a past definer of Indigenous people. Gray''s work complements and adds to earlier publications: Wolfe''s Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology, McGregor''s Imagined Destinies and Anderson''s Cultivating Whiteness.

"Convincing Ground" pulses with love of country. In this powerful, lyrical and passionate new work Bruce Pascoe asks us to fully acknowledge our past and the way those actions continue to influence our nation today, both physically and intellectually. The book resonates with ongoing debates about identity, dispossession, memory and community. Pascoe draws on the past through a critical examination of major historical works and witness accounts and finds uncanny parallels between the techniques and language used there to today''s national political stage. He has written the book for all Australians, as an antidote to the great Australian inability to deal respectfully with the nation''s constructed Indigenous past. For Pascoe, the Australian character was not forged at Gallipoli, Eureka and the back of Bourke, but in the furnace of Murdering Flat, Convincing Ground and Werribee. He knows we can''t reverse the past, but believes we can bring in our soul from the fog of delusion. Pascoe proposes a way forward, beyond shady intellectual argument and immature nationalism, with our strengths enhanced and our weaknesses acknowledged and addressed.

In her startling book, Rosalind Kidd uses official correspondence to reveal the extraordinary extent of government controls over Aboriginal wages, savings, endowments and pensions in twentieth century Queensland. In a disturbing indictment of the government''s $4000 reparations offer, Kidd unpicks official dealings on the huge trust funds compiled from private income and community endeavours, showing how governments used these finances to their advantage, while families and communises struggled in poverty. Casting the evidence in terms of national and international litigation, particularly cases relating to government accountability for Indigenous interests, Kidd makes a powerful case that the Queensland government should be held to the same standards of accountability and redress as any major financial institution. "Trustees on Trial" is a timely warning for all other Australian jurisdictions to consider their liability for Aboriginal money taken in trust.

Widely regarded as one of the great Aboriginal leaders of the modern era, Rob Riley was at the centre of debates that have polarised views on race relations in Australia: national land rights, the treaty, deaths in custody, self-determination, the justice system, native title and the Stolen Generations. He tragically took his own life in 1996, weighed down by the unresolved traumas of his exposure to institutionalisation, segregation and racism, and his sense of betrayal by the Australian political system to deliver justice to Aboriginal people. His death shocked community leaders and ordinary citizens alike. Set against the tumultuous background of racial politics in an unreconciled nation, the book explores Rob''s rise and influence as an Aboriginal activist. Drawing on perspectives from history, politics and psychology, this work explores Rob''s life as a ''moral protester'' and the challenges he confronted in trying to change the destiny of a nation. Rob Riley''s belief that he had failed in this quest raises profound questions about the legacy of past racial policies, the extent of institutionalised racism in Australia and the reluctance of Australia''s politicians to show leadership on race. Much of Riley''s life was a triumph of the human spirit against great adversity, and this legacy remains.