Reviews with content warning for Genocide - Dark Emu: Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture

I don't know how to rate this. This book explores how actual Australian Aboriginal people lived versus what is taught in Australia and around the world. It criticizes English colonists and their written representation of the Aboriginal people as it diminished their agricultural, fishing, governmental, and civil developments. An important read. Very educational, but also unfortunately dry if you don't enjoy reading about agriculture.

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downsophialane's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.75

We’ve been lying to each other about the traditional custodians of Australia. In Dark Emu, Bruce Pascoe problematises the myth of a simplistic pre-invasion Indigenous hunter-gatherer society in accessible and digestible prose. What’s most astonishing about the mainstream cultural simplification of Aboriginal Australian societies in this country is that evidence to the contrary is RIGHT THERE in the written accounts, and supported by archeological evidence of complex organised economies and technologies across the continent prior to European arrival. As a young man Bruce Pascoe was a teacher, and this book offers the clear, straightforward explanation of an educator.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

TO TEACH? 🍎
Every Australian teacher should read this book, particularly social sciences and/or humanities that teach invasion history of Australia.

For Stage 5 English, I plan to use excerpts of this text alongside with western history of science. Students will examine the gaps in western-centric scientific narratives of progress.

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sneako's review against another edition

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challenging hopeful informative inspiring sad medium-paced

4.0

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