Book review: Reevaluating Australia's dark history

Aboriginal leader emerges as resistance hero of Tasmania's forgotten war

In their recent book, co-authors Henry Reynolds and Nicholas Clements argue that Tasmanian Aboriginal leader Tongerlongeter is a war hero worthy of a place in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The image on the right depicts Tasmanian Aboriginal fighters attacking a shepherd's hut. (Cover image courtesy of the publisher)

GEOFF HISCOCK, Contributing writer

December 17, 2021 08:00 JST

HOBART, Tasmania -- Like much of Australia's island state of Tasmania, there is a melancholy beauty about Great Oyster Bay, a sheltered east coast bay that is steeped in the violence and sadness of the Frontier Wars of two centuries ago, when Aboriginal tribes sought to resist encroaching European colonizers.