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The Australian Frontier Wars, 1788-1838. By John Connor. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2002. ISDN 0-86840-756-9. Maps. Notes. Select bibliography. Index. Pp. xii, 175. $24.95. Available in the U.S. from the University of Washington Press in Seattle.
John Connor sets out to create the first comprehensive military history of Australia's frontier wars, and he succeeds impressively. He surveys the combats and analyses their military features thoroughly, covering the numerous small-scale rights between specific Aboriginal groups-who also warred among themselves-and British convicts, settlers, and government troops between 1788 and 1828, in all the main regions of colonization. He does this in the middle of a much-publicized, historiographic controversy now raging among the leading writers of Aboriginal history. The more extreme followers of Henry Reynolds insist that the British invaders massacred the indigenous people horribly time and time again, perpetrating what we now call crimes against humanity. Their opponents, led presently by Keith Windshuttle, condemn this "Black Armband" interpretation as gross exaggeration, unsubstantiated by verifiable Aboriginal casualty figures. Left and right wing national politicians are participating vigorously. Indigenous politicians are publicly involved. The latest overview of this debate is the Brian Atwood and S. G. Foster edition, Frontier Conflict; The Australian Experience (Canberra: National Museum of Australia, 2003). John Connor's title appears in one footnote, no. 17, of the introductory chapter by the editors, with no comment about it there or in their text. Connor himself discusses much of the evidence they argue about, and sometimes agrees with...