Bruce Pascoe is a fraud. I guess the jokes on us.

Pascoe's book cannot be fairly styled 'history' and is not recommended. His central thesis, always somewhat dubious given the selective use and interpretation of information, has subsequently been debunked by a range of academic sources: referenced in Peter O'Brien's "Bitter Harvest" (2020) and Sutton and Walshe's "Farmers or hunter-gatherers?" (2021).

interesting codswallop Pascoe is a genius making such misinformation profitable.
Greg

I think every Australian needs to read this book. I went to school in the '60s and '70s - Why were we not taught about indigenous culture, technology and heritage? What terrible mistakes could have been avoided if the people who lived in and managed this land for millennia had been embraced and listened to, if their culture and practices had been accepted and incorporated into a shared future. Well done Bruce Pascoe - the best book I've read in a long time.

I am nearly finished reading Dark Emu and I am finding out many facts that I as well as most people did not know. I find it very interesting that the book is based on the journals and diaries of the first white settlers accounts that have been overlooked for so long. Maybe there is lessons in these writings to help this country in times of drought. My congratulations to Bruce Pascoe on a very empowering book I have also bought copies of Young Dark Emu for my Grandchildren for Christmas

An excellent book, well researched, well written, offering the ways Indigenous people lived for thousands of years. It provides evidence of the actual lifestyles of so many groups very convincingly. It makes so much sense -perhaps we should adopt the ways where water, and food was deployed.

Great book on aboriginal heritage prior to and following British settlement of Australia.

The historical accounts within this book are, by far, the most interesting to read. However, interjections of personal opinion and exaggerations, of the significance of certain aboriginal methods for cultivation, may lead the reader to doubt the accuracy of some claims.
It is worth reading if, like myself, you were brought up in school learning about the 'nomadic' and specifically 'hunter/gatherer' hypotheses presented in the early 2000's curricular. Certainly eye opening, and I wish to see the facts to be presented in schools across Australia.

A stunning book .... an expose of just how the First Nation people managed the land. I loved the fact that so many documents are referenced ... further adding to the truth of this book.

Best non-fiction book I have read this year!!!

This book will change the way you see our history in Australia. Bruce Pascoe has written a most authoritative account of what was here before 1788 and of the way that Europeans,with ignorance and small-mindedness,have refused to see and acknowledge what they came upon and often tried to destroy. We could learn a lot by having a very close look at the way indigenous Australians made this entire continent a workable,sustainable place. We can't,of course,become like the indigenous people were but we can try to learn about what they had developed here. Simple things,like the role of fire in the landscape and what actually grows here and can feed people in the native flora. We might come to understand what our 231 years have done to harm the place we live in,to understand what sheep and cattle continue to do to the environment.
This book rests upon extensive study.The bibliography is extensive. Pascoe writes with a command of so much factual knowledge of what happened and why we couldn't see what we were doing. I would highly recommend this book to all Australians. I might even say it should be compulsory reading for all of us who live here and depend upon the land we have inherited.That includes you,reader.

What a fascinating and interesting book, I thought that this history was what I should have been taught at school. I was also saddened by the sheer amount of knowledge that has apparently been lost that would be so useful today in our dry environment.

Fascinating and exciting explanation of Aboriginal agricultural and building practices pre colonial invasion.

Mr Pascoe introduces the reader to the books written for British pblishers by early surveyors in the new clony now known as Australia. These surveyors went before the sqatters and found for them suitable country. So the history of the cotry is very much broadened from what I for one knew about . In fact surprises are there for most readers as Pascoe quotes those early surveyors. I dod not know previously how widespread were villages, hoses and farming found in aboriginal culture as described in these books by the srveyors.