The ghosts swarm like angry bees...the early wars, the Stolen Children report, the devastating health statistics, the extravagant incidence of self-destructive acts among Aboriginal adolescents...There has also been a great deal of talk about ‘guilt’ and ‘shame’, and what precise mixture of each non-Aboriginal Australia should be feeling. Inga Clendinnen believes that democratic people need true stories about their past. In this engaging essay, based on Clendinnen’s 1999 Boyer Lectures, she argues for the rejection of any single, simple account of the Australian past. The reader catches the experience of individuals through fragments—a woman being manhandled on a beach, an old man remembering the hard lessons of his boyhood in a Jesuit mission, an old woman urgently dancing the history of her country. What whites have done to indigenous Australians has been described as the ‘locked cupboard’ of Australian history. Now, ‘the cupboard is locked no more’. This frank and challenging review of race relations in Australia helps us cast off prejudice and foregone conclusions and to look with fresh eyes. It enables us to understand better how this nation came to be what it is today.

After spending over three years in the horrific prisoner-of-war camps, including those along the Thai-Burma Railway, Sally Dingo's father Max was one of the fortunate ones: he came home. And yet, like most of the 22,000 Australian POWs of the Japanese, he would not, or could not, talk about what happened with those closest to him. It is also the story of Max's father Mort, who had served in World War I, the story of Max's cobbers - the perhaps unique community of ex-POWs who kept each other going - and the story of the mothers, wives and children who tried to understand what their men were still going through, decades later. This is the story of men, unsung and ordinary, who defended their country and were reluctant to tell the tale.

Christianity is never just about beliefs, but habits and practices - for better or worse. Theology always reflects the social location of the theologian - including her privileges and prejudices - all the time working with a particular, often undisclosed, notion of what is normal. Therefore, theology is never 'neutral' - it defends particular constructions of reality, and it promotes certain interests. Following Jesus in Invaded Space asks what - and whose - interests theology protects when itis part of a community that invaded the land of indigenous peoples. Developing a theological method and position that self-consciously acknowledges the church's role in occupying Aboriginal land in Australia, it dares to speak of God, church, and justice in the context of past history and continuing dispossession. Hence, a 'Second People's theology' emerges through constant and careful attention to experiences of invasion and dislocation brought into dialogue with the theological landscape or tradition of the church. Being a descendant of some of the first English invaders in Australia and a witness to the continuing inadequate recognition of the Church's past mistakes in this country, theologian Chris Budden felt a strong need to write this book. Leaving the past behind does not mean ignoring it, and an acknowledgement of mistakes is a prerequisite to any fruitful discourse between invaders and invaded. In our endeavours to help the marginalised and the indigenous, Budden warns us against the arrogance of pitying them as 'poor superstitious things' who can only be helped by our own superior concept of divine grace. As Budden puts it: 'We need to keep listening for voices that remind us that our normal is not necessarily everybody's normal.' His book encourages us to recognise and appreciate the diverse perspectives of minority theologians. It is not just about giving a voice to these people. It is about being able to hear their own voice, to understand it, and then reinterpret our own tradition according to it.

The story of one of Australia's most loved film and television personalities. The Dingo family history follows the formula of any self-respecting soap opera. It's full of life, death, laughter, violence, struggle, children, poverty, alcohol, and surprisingly after all that, success. It is the stuff of overblown fiction. It is also a history shared with every other Aboriginal family, a history still unknown to many Australians. Dingo makes that incredible story truly accessible to non-Aboriginal Australians. Told through the eyes of Ernie Dingo's wife, Sally, it comes alive. It is also Sally's story. Emerging from her white middle-class existence in a sleepy Tasmanian town, Sally marries a charismatic actor and the turbulent Dingo tribe. She finds much to love and much to cry about. With the unique perspective of a white woman adopted by an Aboriginal family who is able to write about her experiences with great skill and warmth, Dingo is a story to be treasured. 'I think I have learnt more about Aboriginal society than in anything else I've heard or read for a long time.' The Sydney Morning Herald 'A book that bites deep into our consciousness'. The Sydney Morning Herald

Reveals the impact of interracial marriage on Australian society and shows how Australian society has changed over time, with the great majority of Australians now accepting mixed unions when once they were not only rare but provoked hostility and hate.

Accompanying CD-ROM contains 15 video clips, duration ca. 21 min. Fuller listing of CD-ROM contents on p. 293-4.