The Sydney Wars tells the history of military engagements between Europeans and Aboriginal Australians – described as ‘this constant sort of war’ by one early colonist – around the greater Sydney region. Telling the story of the first years of colonial Sydney in a new and original way, this provocative book is the first detailed account of the warfare that occurred across the Sydney region from the arrival of a British expedition in 1788 to the last recorded conflict in the area in 1817. The Sydney Wars sheds new light on how British and Aboriginal forces developed military tactics and how the violence played out. Analysing the paramilitary roles of settlers and convicts and the militia defensive systems that were deployed, it shows that white settlers lived in fear, while Indigenous people fought back as their land and resources were taken away. Stephen Gapps details the violent conflict that formed part of a long period of colonial strategic efforts to secure the Sydney basin and, in time, the rest of the continent. ‘A powerful and cogent contribution to one of the most contentious aspects of Australian history: the war between British settlers and the First Nations. The fine detailed research will mean that we will have to radically reassess our understanding of the history of the first thirty years of settlement.’ —Henry Reynolds

This text is a comprehensive military history of frontier conflict in Australia. Covering the first 50 years of British occupation in Australia, the book examines in detail how both sides fought on the frontier and examines how Aborigines developed a form of warfare differing from tradition.

‘We are at war with them,’ wrote a Tasmanian settler in 1831. ‘What we call their crime is what in a white man we should call patriotism.’ Australia is dotted with memorials to soldiers who fought in wars overseas. So why are there no official memorials or commemorations of the wars that were fought on Australian soil between First Nations people and white colonists? Why is it more controversial to talk about the frontier wars now than it was one hundred years ago? In this updated edition of Forgotten War, winner of the 2014 Victorian Premier’s Award for non-fiction, influential historian Henry Reynolds makes it clear that there can be no reconciliation without acknowledging the wars fought on our own soil. ‘Impressive … In terse, uncompromising sentences, Reynolds lays out a new road map towards true reconciliation.’ — Raymond Evans, The Age ‘A brilliant light shone into a dark forgetfulness: ground-breaking, authoritative, compelling.’ — Kate Grenville ‘Forgotten War invites us to recognise and applaud the courage and tenacity of those Aborigines who defended their lands against impossible odds and to recognise the cost to them and to their descendants.’ — Franklin Richards ‘Forgotten War is a work of passion by one of Australia’s greatest living historians, a scholar who has helped to redefine the relationships between white and black Australians … His measured prose and scholarly authority should be heeded.’ — Peter Stanley, Sydney Morning Herald ‘Henry Reynolds’ Forgotten War calls for the principle of ‘lest we forget’ to include all Australians who died in defending their country, including Indigenous people. Timely historical analysis of newly collated and discovered evidence shows that the coming of European settlers to Aboriginal territories was firmly defined as a frontier war … Reynolds makes a compelling and measured case that we should officially honour and acknowledge the tens of thousands of people who died in our frontier wars.’ — Judges’ Report, The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards

'In May 1824, what can only be described as a period of all-out, total gudyarra ('war' in the Wiradyuri language) had begun west of the Blue Mountains. Relations between Wiradyuri people and the colonists in the country around Bathurst had completely broken down, and the number of raids and killings occurring across isolated stock stations in the district had intensified.' In Gudyarra, Stephen Gapps - award-winning author of The Sydney Wars - unearths what led to this furious and bloody war, beginning with the occupation of Wiradyuri lands by Europeans following Governor Macquarie's push to expand the colony west over the Blue Mountains to generate wealth from sheep and cattle. Gudyarra traces the co-ordinated resistance warfare by the Wiradyuri under the leadership of Windradyne, and others such as Blucher and Jingler, that occurred in a vast area across the central west of New South Wales. Detailing the drastic counterattacks by the colonists and the punitive expeditions led by armed parties of colonists and convicts that often ended in massacres of Wiradyuri women and children, Gapps provides an important new historical account of the fierce Wiradyuri resistance. 'This isn't just a war for Wiradjuri country, this is a war for Australia: the country we are still to be. Our nation begins here.' -- Stan Grant 'The untold story of the Wiradyuri War of resistance against a World Empire' -- Uncle Bill Allen Junior, Wiradyuri Elder 'In Gudyarra, Stephen Gapps plots in meticulous detail the brutal war between the British and the Wiradyuri for possession of the Western Plains of New South Wales. A masterly account of both sides of the conflict, Gudyarra offers new understandings of the complexity of frontier history and the need for all Australians to reconcile with the past.' -- Lyndall Ryan 'This is an important book, indeed essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the new direction in the history of the frontier wars.' -- Henry Reynolds

After decades of silence, Serving Our Country is the first comprehensive history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's participation in the Australian defense forces. While Indigenous Australians have enlisted in the defense forces since the Boer War, for much of this time they defied racist restrictions and were denied full citizenship rights on their return to civilian life. In Serving Our Country, Mick Dodson, John Maynard, Joan Beaumont, Noah Riseman, Alison Cadzow, and others, reveal the courage, resilience, and trauma of Indigenous defense personnel and their families, and document the long struggle to gain recognition for their role in the defense of Australia.

The publication of this book in 1981 profoundly changed the way in which we understand the history of relations between indigenous Australians and European settlers. Describes in meticulous and compelling detail the ways in which Aborigines responded to the arrival of Europeans.

'The History Wars is very important. The book will sit on the shelves of libraries as a code stone to help people understand the motivations of players in today's contemporary debate. It sheds light on the political battle which is carried on in the pubs and on the footpaths about who we are and what has become of us.' andmdash; Hon. Paul Keating, Prime Minister of Australia, 1991-1996 The nation's history has probably never been more politicised than it is today. Politicians, journalists, columnists, academics and Australians from all walks of life argue passionately andmdash; and often, ideologically andmdash; about the significance of the national story: the cherished ideal of the 'fair go', the much contested facts of Indigenous dispossession, the Anzac legend, and the nation's strategic alliance with the United States. Historians have become both combatants and casualties in this war of words. In The History Wars, Stuart Macintyre and Anna Clark explore how this intense public debate has polarised the nation and paralysed history departments. This edition includes a new afterword by Stuart Macintyre which recounts, with rueful irony, the outbreak of controversy that followed the book's original publication, and the further light it shed on the uses and abuses of Australian history.