Book event

The Australian Wars | In Conversation with Henry Reynolds, Nicholas Clements, Greg Lehman and Cassandra Pybus

For the first time, The Australian Wars brings what for too long has been considered the historical past into connection with its reverberations in the present.

It is estimated up to 100,000 people died in the frontier wars that raged across Australia for more than 150 years. This is equivalent to the combined total of all Australians killed in foreign battles to date. But there are few memorials marking these first, domestic wars.

The Australian Wars was conceived by Rachel Perkins following her award-winning documentary series produced by Blackfella Films for SBS and edited along with Stephen Gapps, Mina Murray and Henry Reynolds. This is the first book to tell the story of the continental sweep of massacres, guerilla warfare, resistance and the contests of firearms and traditional Aboriginal weaponry as Indigenous nations resisted colonial occupation of their lands, territory by territory. At stake was the sovereignty of an entire country.

Black and white writers tell the stories of these battles across three crucial time periods, and all the states and territories. It notes the lands that were unconquered, as well as the role of disease, weapons and tactics, and the story of women on the frontier.

This history is still alive in those descendants who carry the stories of their ancestors. The Australian Wars brings what for too long has been considered the historical past into the present so that we might know the truth of the origins of this nation.

Henry Reynolds is a historian who wrote an MA thesis on nineteenth- century colonial politics. He taught in Tasmania and the UK before accepting a lecturing position in Townsville University College (now James Cook University). He lived in North Queensland for over 30 years, teaching Australian history and politics, where he became deeply involved in race politics with local Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders, which greatly influenced his teaching and research. Henry has written over 20 books—many of them prize winners including: The Other Side of the Frontier, The Law of the Land, Forgotten War and Truth-Telling.

Dr Nicholas Clements is a historian of Aboriginal Tasmania and frontier conflict. His 2014 book, The Black War: Fear, Sex and Resistance in Tasmania, explored the motivations and experiences of both colonists and Aboriginal people during that conflict. Nick’s 2021 book, co-authored with Henry Reynolds, was Tongerlongeter: First Nations Leader and Tasmanian War Hero – the story of a remarkable Palawa leader and the incredible resistance he and his people mounted against the invasion of their country. Most recently, he contributed the Tasmanian chapter to The Australian Wars. Nick is also a local high school teacher, rock climber and family man.

Professor Greg Lehman is a descendant of the Trawulwuy people of northeast Tasmania, and a Professorial Fellow at the University of Tasmania. He holds a Master of Studies in the History of Art and Visual Cultures from Oxford, and a PhD in Art History from the University of Tasmania, where he is currently a Professorial Fellow. Greg is a curator and writer, a well-known Tasmanian art historian and essayist on Indigenous history, identity and place.

Cassandra Pybus is an award-winning author and a distinguished historian. She is author of twelve books and has held research professorships at the University of Sydney, Georgetown University in Washington DC, the University of Texas and King’s College London. She is descended from the colonist who received the largest free land grant on Truganini’s traditional country of Bruny Island.

Join Henry, Nicholas, Greg and Cassandra at Hobart Town Hall.