The Australian Wars - by Perkins Rachel & Stephen Gapps & Mina Murray & Henry Reynolds Hardcover

Book Synopsis

For the first time, The Australian Wars brings what for too long has been considered the historical past into connection with its reverberations in the present.

It is estimated that up to 100,000 people died in the frontier wars that raged across Australia for more than 150 years--equivalent to the combined total of all Australians killed in foreign wars to date. Yet few memorials mark these first, domestic conflicts.

The Australian Wars was conceived by Rachel Perkins following her award-winning documentary series produced by Blackfella Films for SBS, and edited along with Stephen Gapps, Mina Murray, and Henry Reynolds. This is the first book to tell the story of the continental sweep of massacres, guerrilla warfare, resistance, and the contests of firearms and traditional Aboriginal weaponry as Indigenous nations resisted colonial occupation of their lands, territory by territory. At stake was the sovereignty of an entire country.

Black and white writers tell the stories of these battles across three crucial time periods, spanning all states and territories. The book notes the lands that remained unconquered, the roles of disease, weaponry, and tactics, and the experiences of women on the frontier.

This history lives on in the descendants who carry the stories of their ancestors. The Australian Wars brings the past into the present so that we might understand the truth of this nation's origins.

Praise for The Australian Wars: "As it peels back the enduring veils of silence and denial about our shared past, The Australian Wars exposes a complex legacy of shame, pride, crime and valor... The authors have delivered a huge favor wrapped in a hard lesson." - Tim Winton "An inspiring, game-changing work of collective truth-telling about our shared history." - Kate Grenville "This book provides the most comprehensive account available of the continental violence against Aboriginal people during colonial settlement and its consequences today." - David Kemp AC "No more denial, no more cant. These wars happened, and we cannot blink them away." - Don Watson "This book ensures that the original people of this nation are not denied the dignity of their resistance." - Kim Beazley "A compelling call to truth-telling and national reckoning... meticulously researched and deeply moving." - The Hon Ken Wyatt AC

About the Author

Rachel Perkins is a filmmaker with a career spanning documentaries, television drama and movies. Her Australian Aboriginal heritage (Arrernte/Kalkadoon) has inspired much of her work including The Australian Wars documentary series, which she wrote and directed and which was commissioned by SBS and produced by Blackfella Films. Other notable documentary work includes First Australians and Blood Brothers. Her fiction work includes the TV dramas Total Control, Mystery Road and Redfern Now and the movies Jasper Jones, Mabo, Bran Nue Dae, One Night the Moon and Radiance. She spends her time between her traditional country of Mparntwe/ Alice Springs and Sydney.

Stephen Gapps is a historian working to bring the Australian Frontier Wars into broader public recognition. In 2011 Stephen won a NSW Premier's History Award for his book Cabrogal to Fairfield City: A history of a multicultural community. His 2018 title The Sydney Wars: Conflict in the early colony, 1788-1817 won the 2019 Les Carlyon Literary Prize. In 2021 Stephen published Gudyarra: The First Wiradyuri War of Resistance-the Bathurst War 1822- 1824 and in 2025, Uprising: War in the Colony of New South Wales 1838-1844. Stephen is a Senior Associate at Artefact Heritage and Environment and Adjunct Lecturer at Charles Sturt University.

Mina Murray is a Wiradyuri scholar, educator and historian. Her research focuses on reclaiming the history of armed Indigenous resistance by synthesizing archival research and conventional, historical practice with the knowledge and philosophy of her people. Mina has worked with the ABC, SBS, AFL, the Australian War Memorial and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across the continent. For Dhuluny, the 200th anniversary of the declaration of martial law in Bathurst, Mina collaborated with Wiradyuri Elders, local Aboriginal organizations and AIATSIS to produce a suite of curriculum materials and teachers' resources for the commemoration.

Henry Reynolds is a historian who wrote an MA thesis on nineteenth- century colonial politics. He taught in Tasmania and the UK before accepting a lecturing position in Townsville University College (now James Cook University). He lived in North Queensland for over 30 years, teaching Australian history and politics, where he became deeply involved in race politics with local Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders, which greatly influenced his teaching and research. Henry has written over 20 books-many of them prize winners including: The Other Side of the Frontier, The Law of the Land, Forgotten War and Truth-Telling.