The truth about the bloody battles fought to establish a nation. 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 up to 100,000 people died in the frontier wars that raged across Australia for more than 150 years. This is equivalent to the combined total of all Australians killed in foreign battles to date.
But there are few memorials marking these first, domestic wars. 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, guerilla 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. This history is still alive in those descendants who carry the stories of their ancestors.
The Australian Wars brings what for too long has been considered the historical past into the present so that we might know the truth of the origins of this nation. “The Australian Wars is a compelling call to truth-telling and national reckoning. It exposes the historical amnesia surrounding Australia’s foundation, comparing the silencing of the Frontier Wars to that of the Stolen Generations… This is more than a chronicle of the past—it is a challenge to reshape national memory, honour Indigenous resistance as patriotic, and build a future rooted in justice and shared truth.” The Hon. Ken Wyatt AC
Pages: 416
Published: November 2025
