In this superbly researched book Bain Attwood eschews thegeneralisations of national and colonial history to provide a finely grainedlocal history of the Djadja Wurrung people of Central Victoria. Insisting onthe importance of grappling with a history that involved a relationship betweenthe people of this Aboriginal nation, the British settlers who invaded theircountry, and men appointed by the imperial and the colonial governments toprotect the Aboriginal people, as well as a relationship between the DjadjaWurrung and their indigenous neighbours, Attwood not only tells the shockingstory of the destruction, decimation, and dispossession of the Djadja Wurrung, he draws on an unusually rich historical record, and forgoes any reliance onhistorical concepts such as the frontier and resistance, to recover a good dealof the modus vivendi that the Djadja Wurrung reached with sympatheticprotectors, pastoralists, and gold diggers, showing how they both adopted andadapted to these intruders and were thereby able to remain in their owncountry, at least for a time. 

Drawing past and present together, Attwood closesthis book with the remarkable story of the revival of the Djadja Wurrung inrecent times as they have sought to become their own historians.

Reviewed in Australian Book Review here.