This provocative study breaks new ground. It argues that, in a period dominated by the white Australia ideal, the nation's political leaders were content to allow disease and malnutrition, as well as punitive police raids, to ravage the Aboriginal population of the Northern Territory, and that for decades there was a failure to provide funding to implement publicly announced policies. Written for a general readership, "Governing Savages" explains how such a state of affairs could arise and be tolerated in a professedly humane society. The result of almost a decade of research by one of the leading scholars in the field of Australian race relations, the book analyzes the attitudes of pastoralists, missionaries, administrators, judges and politicians and of those - including Aboriginal leaders - seeking to awaken the conscience of Australians and bring to an end generations of brutality and callous indifference. Andrew Markus is the editor of journals on Aboriginal history, intercultural studies and labour history, and was a consultant to the Fitzgerald Committee on Australia's immigration policies. The author of "Blood from a Stone", he is currently Senior Lecturer in History at Monash University, Melbourne. This book is intended for general readers, and students and researchers in Australian and Aboriginal studies.

In 1928, after a white man was killed, a punitive party mounted a series of attacks on Aborigines northwest of Alice Springs. The party's leader admitted that 31 Aborigines were killed. One missionary in the area put the toll at 70; another at as many as 100. Since 1911, the administration of the Northern Territory had been the direct responsibility of the Commonwealth. In placing this event and others within the context of policies pursued by the national government, Governing Savages reveals how policies of brutality and calculated neglect bequeathed a bitter legacy to subsequent generations.

In Australia, on May 27, 1967, a remarkable event occurred. An overwhelming majority of electors voted in an Australian national referendum to amend clauses of the Australian Constitution concerning Aboriginal people. May 27, 2007 is the 40th anniversary of this landmark event. Nowadays, a younger generation of Australians is unaware of this historical achievement, while an older generation remains unclear about its significance. The referendum is commonly considered the turning point in Australian historical and cultural life. This historic moment is when citizenship rights were granted including the vote and the Commonwealth finally assumed responsibility for Aboriginal affairs. However, the outcomes for Indigenous Australians have not improved significantly. So what is the referendum's value now? This fully revised and updated second edition explores the legal and political significance of the referendum and the long struggle by Australians for constitutional change. The book tr