Looking from the North

Henry Reynolds' ground-breaking re-examination of Australian colonisation from the north down.

When acclaimed historian Henry Reynolds moved from Hobart to Townsville to teach Australian history in the 1960s, he discovered the books of the period covered very little about northern Australia and First Nations peoples. After recognising the importance of local history and frontier violence, he ended up transforming Australian history in ways he could never have imagined. In Looking from the North Reynolds again turns Australian history on its axis in an exploration of colonisation north of the Tropic of Capricorn. Reynolds explores the stories of the European, Chinese, Japanese and Pacific Islander people who were vital to the settlement of the north. Along with the experience of First Nations peoples, from employment on stations and as native police, to the land rights and homelands movements. Reynolds shows how the colonisation of the north, beginning in 1861, was a very different venture to settlement in the south, and argues that it provides profoundly important lessons for the world we live in today.