1st Edition

Australia’s Doomed-Race Protective Myth Impact and Aftermath

By Grant Rodwell Copyright 2025
282 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

282 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Periodically, in Australian society racial chasms emerge portraying the great divide between Indigenous and non‑Indigenous Australians, exposing the sustained influence of the doomed‑race protective myth and its residue. This book exposes that a long and powerful influence on Australian society, economy, culture, and history has been the doomed‑race protective myth. While most nations harbour... Read more

Introduction; 1 The doomed race: myths and protective myths, history and the vagaries of the complex relationship between nostalgia and critique; the vagaries and politics of the memory factor in history; 2 Protective myths at play, the Stolen Generations, and silencing the past; 3 Terra nullius, massacres, First Nations societies, and settler nationalism’s hegemony and political might; 4 Assimilation and the politics of protective myths; 5 School education, protective myths, and a “science” for the subjugating, segregating, and later assimilating First Nations societies; 6 General conclusions

Biography

Grant Rodwell is a senior lecturer (adjunct) at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He has published seven books with Routledge.