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The road to Australia was a very long one indeed for Russian ethnographer -- Vladimir Kabo whose lifetime passion has been the study of this comment''s Aboriginal people. Continually denied permission to travel abroad for over 30 years, I dreamed of seeing Australia with my own eyes. At last, in 1990, came the opportunity -- and the vital passport. This eventful memoir records Vladimir Kabo''s early years and education, his time at the front in the Second World War and his banishment to a labour camp during which period he began to formulate his theories about early human society. After ''rehabilitation'' he was finally able to begin his life''s work in the St Petersburg museum among its artefact treasures from Australia, New Guinea and the Pacific Islands. Perestroika in the late 1980s brought Australian visitors, like Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal), and also the possibility of a new life in the country he had studied for so many years. An afterward by archaeologist Rhys Jones provides an appreciation of Vladimir Kabo ''s scholarly work within the context of Soviet anthropological theory and Australian Aboriginal ethnography.

This collection of histories, in both written and illustrative form, from the women and men of Ernabella, in northern South Australia, tells the story of the interaction between white and black women that led to the establishment and development of a significant school of Australian art, Ernabella Arts Inc, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1998. From ''first missionary coming'', through the terror of the nearby atomic bomb tests in the 1950s, to the commercial and artistic successes of the 1990s, the stories speak of great losses and regrets, but also of remarkable achievements, and of the skill and strength of the individuals whose voices we hear. At Ernabella Arts, all the artistic output is produced by women and this, one of the oldest centres of contemporary Aboriginal art in the country, is best known for its distinctive design and its use of new and innovative media, such as those used in textile art. The beautiful batiks produced at Ernabella have been exhibited around the world and the artists are sought after as teachers all over Australia, and internationally. These artists, when asked to explain their designs by those who are unaware of their non-representational nature, say ''don''t ask for stories''. We are lucky, however, that they have chosen to record their stories in other ways, and in the process have given their readers a striking insight into their lives and work.

This is the inside story of the Mabo case, a unique court drama where rights and interests previously unknown to Anglo-Australian law came to be recognised by the High Court of Australia. In far north-east Australia lie the homelands of the Meriam, a dynamic seafaring, fishing and gardening people. They explained in court, often eloquently, how their ''cultural way'' retains a fidelity to distinctive principles while also accommodating new ideas and techniques. In the name of Meriam law they also defended their right to land passed between generations by the spoken word. Their right to land carries with it a moral and practical responsibility to other Meriam and to the land itself. Meriam culture, often diminished in the hearing of evidence, has an original contribution to make to future Meriam, to the rest of Australia and to the world. In exploring the role of native title in the reshaping of Australian identity, some of the deeper questions of cultural diversity and self-determination are identified.

In 1976, Bill Rosser visited friends on Palm Island and was shocked at the restrictions the Aboriginal people living there were forced to endure. He recorded their lives and stories in his first book, "This is Palm Island". In the 1980s, Rosser went back to Palm Island and this book is an account of his experiences and the changes he saw in both the people and the place.