Books & Literature

Book Review: Coniston, by Michael Bradley

AUSTRALIAN HISTORY: As the last mass killing in our country’s genocidal past but an event largely unremembered, the Coniston Massacre of 1928 has never before been fully researched and recorded.

Michael Bradley’s impassioned book is a relevant chronology in the ongoing history wars debate.
3.5

If you are familiar with Indigenous history in Australia, the Coniston Massacre will come as no surprise to you. Set within a legal context, this extensively-researched account of the police-led massacre of Aboriginal people in Central Australia is a narrative that is as distressful to read as it is reprehensible to acknowledge; uncomfortably, it is just one story of many that exist within Australia’s genocidal past.

As author Michael Bradley cites, the massacre is formally documented in Commonwealth records as police murders being carried out in self-defence; additionally, much higher numbers of actual deaths occurred than are formally listed. With cover-ups and whitewashing being so permissible at the time of the massacre, the true number of murders will never truly be known, although author Michael Bradley deduces a range of figures based on his research.

The structure of this book would not be engaging for all readers. The level of forensic detail, albeit necessary, detracts the reader from a full descent into emotional despair as it is hard to keep track of all parties involved. At times, the author uses first and last names interchangeably and, if one is unfamiliar with Central Australia, it is hard to imagine the vast landscape that the vigilante group covered in their murderous rampage. A map is included yet could be improved upon by listing the distances between places.

Nevertheless, it is the first dedicated book of its kind with regards to the Coniston event of 1928 and reveals both the extent of power and powerlessness of each of the parties involved and, as the author notes, there can be no reconciliation without first exposing Australia’s true history.

Michael Bradley’s impassioned book is a relevant chronology in the ongoing history wars debate. He acknowledges that as a white Australian, it is history communicated in traditional Western format and that it can in no way replicate or substitute the Aboriginal story; nevertheless he felt compelled to write Coniston when he discovered that such a recent event of mass murder had been neglected and omitted from Australian history books; noting that if the victims had been white, the quantity of information available would be extensive.

Reviewed by Rebecca Wu

Distributed by: UWA Publishing
Released: November 2019
RRP: $29.99

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