Seeing The First Australians
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Very good
Pages: Good
At the intersection of art, history, and colonial encounter, Seeing the First Australians presents a landmark examination of how Aboriginal Australians were perceived, represented, and recorded through European eyes from the moment of first contact. Edited by Ian Donaldson and Tamsin Donaldson, this richly illustrated anthology brings together a distinguished array of scholars to analyse the visual and written records — paintings, drawings, engravings, and written accounts — that shaped and distorted Western understanding of Australia's First Peoples across two centuries of colonial history. The work argues compellingly that representation is never neutral: each image and account tells us as much about the observer as the observed, revealing the prejudices, curiosities, and imperial assumptions embedded in the colonial gaze. Drawing on art history, anthropology, and cultural studies, the contributors illuminate the profound gap between lived Indigenous experience and its European depiction, making this volume an essential and enduring contribution to the scholarly discourse on Australian identity and colonial legacy. For anyone seeking to understand how a nation's foundational myths are constructed through imagery and narrative, this collection poses questions that remain urgently relevant today.
Author: Ian Donaldson & Tamsin Donaldson
Format: Hardback
Genre: Australian history
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Very good
Pages: Good
At the intersection of art, history, and colonial encounter, Seeing the First Australians presents a landmark examination of how Aboriginal Australians were perceived, represented, and recorded through European eyes from the moment of first contact. Edited by Ian Donaldson and Tamsin Donaldson, this richly illustrated anthology brings together a distinguished array of scholars to analyse the visual and written records — paintings, drawings, engravings, and written accounts — that shaped and distorted Western understanding of Australia's First Peoples across two centuries of colonial history. The work argues compellingly that representation is never neutral: each image and account tells us as much about the observer as the observed, revealing the prejudices, curiosities, and imperial assumptions embedded in the colonial gaze. Drawing on art history, anthropology, and cultural studies, the contributors illuminate the profound gap between lived Indigenous experience and its European depiction, making this volume an essential and enduring contribution to the scholarly discourse on Australian identity and colonial legacy. For anyone seeking to understand how a nation's foundational myths are constructed through imagery and narrative, this collection poses questions that remain urgently relevant today.