Breaking the Silence: Aboriginal Defenders and the Settler State, 1905-1939

Breaking the Silence recovers the conflicted politics of Aboriginal affairs in the first decades of the twentieth century. From 1905, when the report of the controversial Roth Royal Commission in Western Australia was made known to the public, to the eve of World War II, the condition, status and treatment of Aboriginal Australians were leading social questions that generated much discontent and underscored the awakening of a national conscience. Styled the 'new public', defenders lobbied g...